Congress wants a rule for the data-center grid bill. The fight is whether it can stick. New to this story? Here’s where it stands. Before this vote, H.R. 9340, the Ratepayer Protection Act, cleared House Energy and Commerce 52-0. The bill would have state utility regulators consider a PURPA standard requiring 100 MW-plus data centers to cover the full incremental generation, transmission, and distribution costs built to serve them, with financial assurances before utilities build. This is The Data Center Daily. First up: Congress voted. Now let’s see what happens when that promise hits an actual utility docket. From Ethan Howland at Utility Dive:
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed the Ratepayer Protection Act — a bill designed to prevent data centers and other large computational loads from shifting their grid and power generation costs onto existing customers — in a 417-3 vote.
Four hundred seventeen to three. The House has decided a 100-megawatt-plus load shouldn’t build its own grid upgrade and stick the tab under everybody else’s door. Took long enough. The large-load cost-recovery bill we flagged before the House vote has moved: it passed 417-3 and now faces a tougher Senate path. One caveat from Utility Dive: states are already writing these large-load tariffs, so Washington is mostly setting a federal floor. And “consider adopting” is a very Washington phrase. ClearView doesn’t think the Senate gets it through before November. Meanwhile, state commissions will decide whether deposits and exit costs really cover the wires. Matt Busse, writing in Cardinal News:
Among various technical details in Appalachian’s Sept. 4 application to the Virginia State Corporation Commission are two numbers that stand out as highlights: - Appalachian Power estimates that it will cost $264 million to upgrade transmission lines and substations to serve Google’s data center campus at the Botetourt Center at Greenfield business park, and - Google will have a peak electricity demand of approximately 300 megawatts, a figure that has not previously been made public.
Three hundred megawatts for one Google campus in Botetourt, and $264 million of wire and substation work. Good—now we’re finally looking at the invoice instead of a glossy rendering. Appalachian Power’s filing says the new load brings in enough revenue to cover those upgrades, so existing customers aren’t expected to pay more. That’s the cost-allocation principle in the House bill, now on Virginia regulators’ desk in actual dollars. “Expected” is the operative word. If Google scales back after Appalachian builds $264 million in upgrades, I want the SCC to know exactly who is contractually eating that cost. Cardinal News got the number that matters: 300 megawatts at peak. We also get a $264 million upgrade tab and a utility claim regulators can test. From IDCNOVA:
Five major data center operators have filed plans to develop new facilities across Texas, underscoring the state's continued appeal as a destination for digital infrastructure investment. Digital Realty, CoreSite, and DataBank are all planning projects in the Dallas area, while Colovore is developing a facility outside Austin and Hut 8 has detailed plans for a site near Corpus Christi.
Five operators have filings in Texas: Digital Realty, Colovore, Hut 8, CoreSite, and DataBank. The disclosed total is about $1.6 billion. Digital Realty’s DFW45 alone is an 80-megawatt, $300 million build in Garland running through January 2029. And it’s still just a filing. Digital has put an 80-megawatt building on paper; that doesn’t put 80 megawatts at the meter. Somebody still has to build and pay for the substations and wires. CoreSite is also entering Dallas with a $200 million first facility in Irving, with room on roughly 37 acres for three buildings eventually. “Eventually” tells you plenty about Texas development paperwork. We just heard Virginia put $264 million of upgrade costs in front of regulators for one 300-megawatt Google campus. Texas is stacking projects across the state, so the cost-allocation fight is headed there too, whether the filings mention it or not. EV Charging Magazine, with Firas Navarro:
At the center of the petition by the Electricity Transmission Competition Coalition (ETCC) is whether FERC lawfully established a new federal “right of first refusal” (ROFR) provision, which allows incumbent electric utilities to rebuild and expand aging transmission lines without opening projects to competitive bidding.
The Fourth Circuit hearing on FERC Order 1920 is where the wires can get expensive. ETCC is challenging the carve-out that lets incumbent utilities right-size aging lines without competitive bids—and that choice can shape the price of every large-load upgrade. We just talked about Appalachian Power’s $264 million Google upgrade in Botetourt. Now ask who gets to build the next one: the incumbent with a protected lane, or somebody who has to win on price. EV Charging Magazine cites a 30% average reduction from historical competitive bidding. It’s a benchmark, not a promise—but an awkward one when utilities want rate recovery for billion-dollar regional plans. The House can tell giant loads to cover their costs. Fine. But if the upgrade builder never faces a bid, regulators still need a microscope—and apparently a calculator with fresh batteries. From Lena Hartmann at OpenSentiment:
U.S. power generation interconnection queues have seen a sharp shift by June 2026, with natural gas project proposals jumping nearly 68% year-over-year as the share of renewables registered a second straight annual decline. Total capacity under consideration reached 1,740 GW, but renewables accounted for just 83% of queued projects—a drop of about 7 percentage points compared to 2025, according to S&P Global data.
Gas proposals are up 68% year over year, and renewables’ queue share drops seven points to 83%. That’s the market reacting to actual load forecasts—not a glossy slide promising clean power sometime after the campus opens. S&P Global puts 1,740 gigawatts in the queue as of June. It’s an enormous number, but it’s still a queue, not a fleet of operating plants. ERCOT and the non-ISO Southeast are where the gas jump is concentrated, which matches the demand pressure we’ve been hearing all morning. And it puts the 417-to-3 House vote in sharper relief. Big-load cost rules matter more when utilities are planning wires and gas plants around forecasts that can vanish—or show up two years late. The second straight annual decline in renewables’ queue share is the signal here. Developers are pricing reliability and speed into the pipeline, and federal decarbonization targets don’t change an interconnection study. If you’re finding The Data Center Daily useful, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you’re listening. Reviews help other people find the show, and they’re a great way to support our daily briefing.
Next checkpoints: Senate action on the Ratepayer Protection Act before the November midterm elections, and construction scheduled to begin on CoreSite’s DA1 project in Dallas County in April 2027.
You’ll find links to every story in the show notes, so take a look at whichever developments you’d like to explore further. That’s The Data Center Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.