Sarah: OpenAI wants 3.2 gigawatts near Savannah — and the same day
Sarah: PJM's monitor put a number on what load like that is already costing everyone else.
Sarah: If you're just joining us
Sarah: PJM's been trying to wrangle a wave of large loads — roughly 30 gigawatts seeking connections by 2030 — into something operators can
Sarah: actually plan around.
Sarah: Its CIFP-LLA framework put vetting, milestone payments, curtailment, and cost allocation on the table.
Sarah: The question all week has been whether that becomes real reliability discipline or just a shinier queue label.
Matt: And today, the receipt showed up.
Matt: This is The Data Center Daily: a $20 billion Georgia bet, a $40 billion buyout that just closed, and now a dollar figure from the monitor.
Matt: Let's start with Savannah.
Matt: If you want to keep up with PJM large-load integration plan, tap follow so the next episode lands in your feed.
Sarah: From Cris Tolomia at Quartz:
Quote: OpenAI announced plans Wednesday to build a data center campus in Effingham County
Quote: Georgia committing $20 billion to the project in order to qualify for a local incentive package.
Quote: The facility named Project Camellia
Quote: is located within the Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub
Quote: about 45 minutes outside of Savannah
Quote: and would be the first data center that OpenAI is designing and building itself.
Sarah: OpenAI's Project Camellia: $20 billion committed in Effingham County to hit a local incentive threshold
Sarah: with 3.2 gigawatts contracted from Georgia Power and a phased build from 2028 to 2032.
Sarah: Bloomberg pegs the full build at north of $30 billion.
Sarah: Note the tense: committed, to qualify for the incentive.
Sarah: They're still seeking partners to finance and build it.
Sarah: This'll be the first campus OpenAI designs and builds itself, rather than renting from Azure.
Matt: The line that caught me is the demand response.
Matt: It's a 25-year deal, with up to 1,000 megawatts they'll shed before residential customers feel it.
Matt: Georgia Power calls it one of the largest single-facility commitments in the country.
Matt: So on paper, the neighbors are protected at peak.
Matt: But that's 3.2 gigawatts landing on one utility through 2032.
Matt: I want to see who backstops the generation
Matt: and whether that flex clause survives the first hot August when OpenAI would rather keep training.
Sarah: A 25-year term, and they don't own the building yet.
Sarah: That's a lot of confidence in a partner they haven't named.
Sarah: Here's Karen Joy Bacudo at DataCenterNews US:
Quote: The transaction is among the largest private investments in digital infrastructure
Quote: underscoring investor demand for data centre assets as artificial intelligence drives a sharp rise in computing and power needs.
Quote: It is also the first investment for AIP, which was set up to mobilise large pools of capital for AI infrastructure.
Sarah: The $40 billion deal is closed.
Sarah: AIP, MGX, and BlackRock's GIP now own 100% of Aligned's equity, with another $5 billion committed for growth.
Sarah: The portfolio spans 51 campuses and 6.4 gigawatts.
Sarah: One caveat: that 6.4 gigawatts includes both operational and planned capacity across Northern Virginia, Dallas, Phoenix, and São Paulo.
Sarah: Planned capacity is carrying a chunk of that headline.
Matt: And here's what we've watched come together: GIP is BlackRock.
Matt: The same house financing the AI-load buildouts is now buying the concrete and the transformers.
Matt: They're on both sides of the trade, and today it's in ink.
Matt: AIP's first-ever investment, with $45 billion out the door.
Matt: So if that six gigawatts of planned capacity doesn't energize, who holds the stranded asset?
Matt: The same fund that lent against it.
Matt: That's a tidy little loop.
Sarah: Macquarie's the seller here, cashing out of infrastructure funds.
Sarah: Somebody looked at that pipeline and decided $40 billion was the exit, not the entry.
Sarah: Here's BTW:
Quote: Monitoring Analytics
Quote: the independent market monitor for PJM Interconnection
Quote: estimates that data centres were responsible for US$6.3bn
Quote: or 38% of the US$16.4bn in charges from PJM’s capacity auction for the 2028–2029 delivery year.
Quote: Monitoring Analytics President Joseph Bowring told Utility Dive that data-centre-related charges totalled US$29.4bn across the last four
Quote: base auctions equal to 46% of the US$63.6bn total.
Quote: The monitor plans to publish its full analysis of the latest auction within weeks.
Matt: There it is. Monitoring Analytics just put a number on what everybody's been waving their hands about: $6.3 billion
Matt: or 38% of PJM's $16.4 billion capacity auction
Matt: attributed to data centers.
Sarah: And here's the PJM large-load update: the monitor is making the attribution PJM wouldn't.
Sarah: The auction cleared at the FERC cap, $325 a megawatt-day, with 138,318 megawatts.
Sarah: It's still 6,831 short of the reliability requirement.
Matt: Nearly seven gigawatts short, while paying the cap.
Matt: Ratepayers get the record bill and the reliability gap.
Matt: Bowring's proposed fix is the interesting part: back new load with new generation, or procure it separately on 15-year contracts.
Sarah: Zoom out, and it gets worse.
Sarah: Bowring told Utility Dive it's $29.4 billion across the last four auctions — 46% of the total.
Sarah: So much for a one-year blip.
Matt: Will the monitor's recommendation have teeth, or will PJM file it next to every other queue-reform gesture and move on?
Matt: A dollar figure with a policy ask means nothing if nobody enforces it.
Sarah: Ashley Cook, writing in Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
Quote: Amid public outcry
Quote: a developer has abandoned its plans for a data center that could have consumed nearly 2 billion gallons of water a year from Cedar Creek
Quote: Lake.
Quote: “Diode Ventures has informed Henderson County that they will not pursue the proposed data center development at the Key Ranch/Cedar Creek
Quote: Lake location,” Henderson County Commissioner Wendy Spivey wrote Wednesday in an email to the Star-Telegram
Quote: saying she was happy to receive that news.
Matt: Five million gallons a day, nearly two billion a year, pulled out of Cedar Creek Lake for cooling and power generation.
Matt: Diode Ventures just walked. Called it off.
Sarah: Look at the route they took: the municipal utility district stalled
Sarah: so Diode went straight to Tarrant Regional
Sarah: which actually owns the water.
Sarah: That tells you how badly they wanted it.
Matt: Right, and the county commissioner didn't get a press release — she got an email saying they're out.
Matt: The residents did the arithmetic the developer wouldn't put on paper, and the arithmetic killed it.
Sarah: It's a clean win for the pressure playbook.
Sarah: But nothing here says where those two billion gallons go next.
Sarah: Diode walked from this lake, not from the buildout.
Matt: Sure, they'll shop the load somewhere with a quieter shoreline.
Matt: But today, a community read the water math out loud and a project folded.
Matt: That's rare enough to say plainly.
Sarah: From Shane Snider at Data Center Knowledge:
Quote: Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing (IVCM) is suing the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) after the utility denied the company’s request
Quote: for about 260 million gallons of Colorado River water per year
Quote: or roughly 750,000 gallons per day
Quote: to cool a planned 330 MW AI data center in Imperial County.
Quote: The case tests whether water historically used for agriculture can be redirected to industrial projects envisioned in the county’s emerging
Quote: Lithium Valley plan.
Matt: IVCM wants 260 million gallons of Colorado River water a year to cool a 330-megawatt campus.
Matt: Their pitch is that they leased 160 acres of farmland that already drank about that much, so it's a wash.
Matt: IID said no on May 1st. Now it's in court.
Sarah: The like-for-like framing is clever: retire the alfalfa, reroute the water.
Sarah: But the district doesn't buy the idea that a physical allotment for irrigation can just legally teleport into a 950,000-square-foot data
Sarah: hall.
Matt: Look at the split-screen this week.
Matt: At Cedar Creek Lake, Diode walks away after residents do the math on five million gallons a day.
Matt: Here in Imperial, nobody's walking.
Matt: They're litigating whether ag water becomes industrial water for decades of Lithium Valley.
Sarah: Because a whole development strategy rides on the answer.
Sarah: If a court says conserved farm water can be redirected to industry, that becomes the template for every campus behind it.
Matt: Right, but calling it "conserved" is generous.
Matt: The Colorado still loses the water.
Matt: All that changes is whose straw is in it.
Matt: This ruling sets the price of admission for a decade of buildout.
Host: Have feedback, a story idea, or a correction?
Host: Send us a note at datacenterdaily at lantern podcasts dot com.
Host: We're always glad to hear what's on your mind.
Host: One thing we're watching: Monitoring Analytics plans to publish its full analysis of PJM's latest capacity auction within weeks.
Host: You'll find links to every story in today's show notes if you want to dig deeper.
Host: That's The Data Center Daily for today.
Host: This is a Lantern Podcast.