Three grids, the same fault line — and now a utility's dragging a data center company into court. A little context before today's development: PJM's fight over large loads was already underway before the board stepped in. A northern Virginia voltage disturbance hit just after more than three gigawatts of data-center demand dropped off and switched to backup power. Meanwhile, FERC's been pressing PJM on capacity-market costs, backstop design, governance, and reliability as that load keeps climbing. This is The Data Center Daily — and today, the numbers finally show up. PJM, ERCOT, and a Nevada lawsuit nobody saw coming. Start with PJM's board — because for once, they moved first. We're staying with this story: PJM large-load integration plan. Follow the show and you won't miss what comes next. This comes from Jason McGovern at PJM Inside Lines. The PJM board just directed two FERC filings — one on resource adequacy and one on large-load management. The number they're working from is 70 gigawatts of large-load growth by 2038. The board's actually moving. So the grid operator blinked first. All week, FERC's been waving a September deadline at PJM. Now the board's putting its own number on the queue and filing on its own terms. And the timing isn't subtle. This lands days after that July 22 disturbance around the D.C.-to-Chicago corridor. Directing those large-load filings sure looks like PJM's institutional answer to that kind of stress. Fine, but a directed filing doesn't clear the queue. Now the question is whether filings built around 70 gigawatts by 2038 satisfy what FERC actually demanded — or whether the board submits something thinner than FERC wanted and calls it done. Right — the tariff language still has to show up in the filings. We'll see what they actually say when they hit the docket, and whether that 70-gigawatt figure is the ceiling or just the starting bid. Here's Houston Business Journal:
With mass amounts of new large-load projects trying to get interconnected with ERCOT, the grid operator has developed a new batch process to better evaluate groups of proposed facilities and how they impact the grid together. Now that projects have been submitted to the initial batch, CenterPoint is preparing for how much demand will be added in the early days of the new system.
Fourteen gigawatts. Forget a hyperscaler press release. CenterPoint, the utility that actually has to string the wire, is telling ERCOT what's landing in the first batch. And it's the first planning number we've gotten from a utility for this new batch process. ERCOT built the process to evaluate large loads as a group instead of one interconnection request at a time. Batches sound tidy. My question is whether grouping the projects actually gets a single megawatt online any faster, or just makes the pile easier to look at. Put that next to the PJM board move we just covered: 70 gigawatts by 2038 there, 14 in one ERCOT batch here. In the same week, both grids are finally putting numbers on the strain. I want this on the record. Line those 14 gigawatts up against Abbott's order from Monday — did the tariff catch up to the queue, or is CenterPoint already planning ahead of rules that aren't written yet? This one's from The Nevada Independent:
In a lawsuit filed Friday in Washoe County's Second Judicial District Court, NV Energy alleged that Tract is attempting to bypass the rulemaking process typically performed by the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada (PUCN) by initiating private arbitration with complaints about when and how much power the utility should provide.
So, surprise: the utility's the one suing. NV Energy filed Friday in Washoe County, and it's suing Tract over an attempt to settle power terms in private arbitration instead of before the PUCN. Right, and the legal theory is what makes this different. Rather than a rate case, NV Energy is challenging the process itself. It says Tract is routing around the commission's rulemaking authority entirely — keeping who pays for what hidden from regulators and the public. And the complaint says who'd pay for those problems: Nevada families and small businesses who, quote, didn't cause them. Tract's sitting on 12,000 acres up north and wants NV Energy to reserve, quote, enormous amounts of power. I'd love the actual megawatt number, but the utility's already citing 22 gigawatts of service requests across the state. Twenty-two gigawatts of requests — announced, not signed, mind you. We've now got two utility-versus-data-center suits in one week, on opposite theories. In Imperial Valley, IID's defending its water allocation. Here, NV Energy's on offense over a process bypass. Here's what gets me. When the utility that actually has to build the lines goes to court to protect the regulator's authority, that arbitration lever is worth more than the rate itself. Control the process, control who pays. From Baburajan Kizhakedath at InfotechLead:
Orange and global infrastructure investor Morrison have entered into an agreement to set up a 50-50 data centre company in France, marking a major investment in sovereign AI and cloud infrastructure. The joint venture aims to expand Orange’s French data centre portfolio to 400 MW of capacity, nearly 10 times its current level, backed by a €3 billion investment programme.
Orange and Morrison are splitting this fifty-fifty, with a three-billion-euro program targeting 400 megawatts in France — nearly ten times Orange's current footprint. Orange's five existing data centers across four campuses make up its asset contribution. Morrison brings equity plus debt. After three days of American grids buckling under load, here's the pitch: France's low-carbon electricity network is the selling point. Nuclear baseload as a colocation feature. And that's the part I actually like: the pitch rests on a grid that's already built, rather than a PPA they haven't signed. Chevilly-Larue and Aubervilliers are existing sites with existing interconnection, not a queue ticket. But “sovereign AI” is mostly marketing. Four hundred megawatts means real steel and cooling — the euphemism won't dig the trenches or wire the campus. Show me the ramp. Right — the three billion comes through a program, and the money still has to be deployed. Orange keeps operational control, and Orange Business is the exclusive commercial partner. Nice, tidy loop if the enterprise demand actually shows up. Dan Rabb, writing in Bisnow:
Asset management giant TPG appears to be preparing a major push into the booming data center market. TPG is in talks to acquire Netrality Data Centers at a value of $2B to $3B in a deal that could be finalized as soon as this fall, Bloomberg reported.
TPG is in talks to buy Netrality for two to three billion. A deal could close this fall, per Bloomberg. And here's the fun part: 18 properties, just over 100 megawatts total. A hundred megawatts. We spend all week on 70 gigawatts at PJM and 14 gigawatts in ERCOT, and somebody's paying three billion for a rounding error? The value here is in the carrier hotels — the fiber crossroads in Chicago, Houston, and Philly. You can't build that intersection twice. Fair. You're paying for the toll booth. Interconnection's the one asset the hyperscalers can't replicate just by pouring more concrete. And Macquarie's held the majority stake since 2019, so this would be the same portfolio's second institutional flip in seven years. The asset stays put; the owners keep trading it up. That tells you exactly what the location's worth. The lights are incidental. The bet is on rent moving one way. Have feedback, a story idea, or a correction? Email us at datacenterdaily at lantern podcasts dot com. We’d love to hear from you.
We’ll keep an eye on TPG’s reported talks to acquire Netrality Data Centers. A deal could be finalized as soon as this fall.
You’ll find links to every story in today’s show notes if you want to dig deeper into any that caught your attention.
That’s The Data Center Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.