PJM opened a fast lane the same day a federal court slammed the escape hatch shut. Quite a day for July 31. New to this story? Here's where things stand. PJM's large-load fight comes down to keeping the grid reliable and affordable while data-center demand strains the system. It already touches capacity-market cost pressure, backstop design, and federal oversight. Then there's the northern Virginia voltage disturbance, where more than three gigawatts of data-center demand dropped to backup power. That prompted PJM's board to direct a FERC filing on reliability backstop procurement and interim resource adequacy. This is The Data Center Daily. Today — a fast lane with a hard cap, a court ruling nobody's talking about, and a hundred-billion-dollar filing. Who clears the bar, and who pays? Let's go. Jason McGovern, writing in PJM Inside Lines:
PJM began accepting applications July 31 for large generation projects that are backed by a primary siting authority and can commence operation within three years. The Expedited Interconnection Track (EIT) is a temporary, standalone process designed to address the urgent need for more capacity resources. It was accepted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on June 9.
PJM's large-load response finally has an open lane. The Expedited Interconnection Track started taking applications July 31. It takes up to ten requests a year in 2026 and 2027, then sunsets. And the bar is pretty specific: 250 MW of unforced capacity, operation within three years, and a state siting authority that's already committed to speeding up permits. That last piece is what actually kills projects after they clear the grid. Ten a year, though? PJM's got hundreds sitting in the base queue, and this window takes ten. It won't fix the queue. It's triage, and somebody's picking winners. It is triage. The target is ten months to a signed Generation Interconnection Agreement — signed, not announced. So the developers who show up with a state permitting partner already on board are the ones who get through. And everybody else keeps waiting. I'll root for the operators who make that 250-megawatt floor real inside three years — but let's not pretend ten slots make a dent in 70 gigawatts of large load. Here's Shayna Greene at Bloomberg Law:
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday convinced an appeals court to uphold its order updating how transmission providers handle electricity projects connecting to the grid. The 2023 order, which added study deadlines and established late fees, didn’t exceed FERC’s authority, according to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
So the D.C. Circuit just told the slow-walkers: no more legal hidey-hole. FERC's study deadlines and late fees stand. Right — the 2023 order survives intact. The court said FERC “identified a real problem” and picked a reasonable fix. That shuts down the biggest challenge hanging over the reform since '23. And put that next to the PJM expedited track we just covered — same day, July 31. The window opens, and the court closes the escape hatch in the same afternoon. The paperwork's finally catching up to the problem. What kills me is it took a court ruling to make deadlines stick. Late fees. On grid studies. That's the bar we're clapping for. Buried in Amazon's latest 10-Q is a disclosure that changes the math on long-term AI compute contracts. Here's the language straight from the filing.
In Q2 2026, AWS and Anthropic announced an expansion of the strategic collaboration and existing multi-year commitment by more than $100.0 billion over 10.0 years, which includes contractual obligations related to the performance of AWS chips.
What gets me is the chip-performance clause. Anthropic is essentially co-signing Amazon's custom silicon roadmap for a decade. You don't see that in a standard hyperscaler offtake agreement, and it changes the calculus for anyone modeling Trainium capacity buildout or competing accelerator bids. Now watch what this anchor commitment does to AWS's interconnection queue priorities and infrastructure capex pacing. It's sitting inside a roughly $496 billion unrecognized contract book, and when your largest AI tenant is locked in at this scale for this long, you build differently. From CBS Texas:
ERCOT says by 2032, the grid could see peak demand of 175,000 megawatts. That's nearly double the current record. The big reason for the estimate is the explosive growth of AI-driven data centers. Regulators told lawmakers this week they believe the grid can handle that growth, thanks in part to all the new solar power farms and battery storage facilities. But ERCOT also warned that solar and batteries alone won't be enough.
Ninety-one thousand megawatts last week, and ERCOT's telling lawmakers 175,000 by 2032. That's nearly double, and the driver is AI data centers. Fine — but in the same week, lawmakers are asking whether Texas should keep handing those data centers billions in tax breaks. And Pablo Vegas said the quiet part on mic — over 90% of what's coming onto the grid is solar and batteries, and that mix can't cover round-the-clock load. So the CEO's asking for gas while regulators tell senators the grid is fine. So which is it? Either solar-and-storage can handle it, or you need dispatchable gas that you haven't built. Can't tell the legislature both. It's the same who-pays fight we're watching in Nevada with NV Energy and Tract, just in a second jurisdiction with a bigger number. Texas has to decide whether ratepayers or the hyperscalers eat the baseload gap. The tax-break vote is where that bill gets priced. Root for the grid people on this one. They're the ones who'll have to keep the grid standing at 175 gigawatts in a July heat wave — 109 feels-like — while everyone else argues about incentives. If The Data Center Daily keeps you informed, subscribe and leave a review wherever you’re listening. It’s a quick way to support the show and help more people find it.
We’ll be watching PJM’s EIT process. It’ll accept proposals on a rolling basis until it reaches its 10-request limit for that calendar year, and the whole track sunsets at the end of 2027.
You’ll find links to every story in today’s show notes, if you’d like to dig deeper.
That’s The Data Center Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.