A federal court cleared the queue-reform rule—just as states started asking AI data centers how much water they’re drinking. This is The Data Center Daily. FERC got a win, Aligned’s $40 billion deal closed, and power and water bills just got a lot less theoretical. First up: does this court win unclog the grid queue—or just remove one excuse for keeping it clogged? Energy-Storage.News's William Norman has been tracking it. The DC Circuit upheld FERC Order 2023 on July 31. Interconnection reform now has firmer legal footing: faster study timelines, clearer withdrawal penalties, and one less court challenge over projects trying to get energized. Good. Grid operators and permitting teams finally got a win. But the morning after a court ruling, that 1,400-plus-gigawatt queue is still there, and no substation gets built by appellate opinion. Precisely. The ruling makes the process more durable. It doesn’t add a megawatt, but it lets Order 2023 keep moving instead of treating it like a regulatory experiment with a lawsuit-shaped expiration date. Look at ERCOT's Batch Zero pause in that context: FERC gets judicial backing to clear the national queue, while Texas adds another audit gate. Very efficient, if the product is delay. Emily Ulizio, writing in National Conference of State Legislatures:
As demand for artificial intelligence and cloud computing continues to grow, so does the need for data centers—the massive facilities housing the servers that power AI and the cloud. These facilities consume a lot of water, primarily for cooling servers and managing the heat generated by computational processes.
With queue reform cleared by the court, states are asking another very practical question: before you permit the data hall, is there actually water for it? NCSL finds lawmakers in at least six states pursuing water-use reporting or disclosure for data centers. Virginia has already signed a law that takes effect in 2027, requiring suppliers to report monthly potable and reclaimed-water volumes. Monthly numbers are excellent. “Sustainable cooling” is lovely brochure language. Potable versus reclaimed water is what tells the town how much a facility’s actually taking. Water is joining power as a siting gate. Developers will have to show adequate supply and infrastructure before permits clear—an inconvenient detail for anyone treating cooling as a footnote to the megawatt pitch. Jemima Davey, writing in Datacenter Dynamics:
The $40bn acquisition of Aligned Data Centers has closed. The purchase, by a consortium comprising the AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), and Abu Dhabi-based MGX, was successfully completed this week. An additional $5bn was also committed for Aligned's data center expansion.
The $40 billion Aligned acquisition closed July 22, with another $5 billion committed for expansion. Finally, a data-center capital story with actual money attached—not just a render and a handshake. And they bought the whole thing from Macquarie: 51 campuses and more than 6.4 gigawatts of operational and planned capacity. “Operational” and “planned” mean very different things in that sentence. Exactly. The consortium now needs to show how much of that 6.4 gigawatts is energized, what comes online when, and which customer contracts support the extra $5 billion. Forty-five billion dollars buys campuses. It doesn’t, by itself, buy transmission, substations, or generation. Dallas headquarters stays put; the power problem doesn’t. This one's from Data Center Dynamics:
The demand for digital and data services continues to grow at an unprecedented rate. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the number of internet users globally has more than doubled since 2010, while internet traffic has surged 20-fold. Despite major efficiency improvements, workloads handled by large data centers have increased energy consumption by 20-40 percent annually since 2020.
The IEA says workloads at big data centers have pushed power consumption up 20 to 40 percent a year since 2020. And we’re still treating a 100-megawatt PPA like routine procurement? Sellers have the leverage now. DCD’s point is narrower, and useful: PPAs still anchor net-zero claims, but 100-to-200-megawatt-plus contracts are getting tougher as tariffs and equipment costs rise. A signed PPA with a credible in-service date still matters. A sustainability slide isn’t enough. The Aligned buyers just committed another $5 billion to expansion. Before you call it infrastructure, put the generation, transmission rights, and executed power contracts beside that number. The DC Circuit just upheld FERC Order 2023, so the federal queue rules have firmer legal footing. That helps the process. It doesn’t create a 200-megawatt clean-power contract at a price a data center will sign. If you’re enjoying The Data Center Daily, subscribe or leave a review wherever you’re listening. It helps people find the show—and helps us bring you the latest every day.
You’ll find links to every story in the show notes, along with the sources behind today’s briefing. Dig into whichever ones you want, and we’ll be back Monday. That’s The Data Center Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.