FERC kept PJM's list of big loads and tossed the plan for cutting them off. Congratulations to everyone on the headcount. If you're just joining us: back on August 13, PJM asked FERC to let it curtail new large loads in emergencies unless they brought their own new capacity, alongside a 6.8 gigawatt reliability backstop procurement. FERC suspended that procurement on September 29 over cost allocation flaws. Rep. Pallone pushed the commission to go further on protecting customers, and on October 7, DOE filed a rare position statement demanding large loads bear the cost. Welcome to The Data Center Daily. Also coming up: the Meta number somebody fought to keep off the record, Colossus 2 lighting up Memphis, and TeraWulf's power outrunning its money. Starting with the headcount. The Duck Curve writes:
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on October 9 accepted PJM Interconnection's definition of a Large Load, end-use customer load with a cumulative peak of 50 MW or more at a single electrical site, and a Large Load Registry to track those loads, and rejected the rest of PJM's August 13 filing in docket ER26-3515 as one package.
So FERC tossed IRAS. That's the service that would've cut new big loads first in a shortage unless they brought their own capacity. Gone, and the bring-your-own rules went down with it, all in one bundle. So, PJM's large-load framework. Last month the commission suspended the backstop procurement, and now it's thrown out the curtailment service too. What survives the October 9 order in ER26-3515 is the 50 megawatt definition and the registry, effective tomorrow, October 12. Great. A spreadsheet. DOE's telling FERC there's a 6,831 megawatt gap, and what ratepayers get right now is... reporting? I'll defend the spreadsheet a little. Affiliated sites within one mile count as one, so nobody parks five 49 megawatt halls side by side and slips under the line. And FERC refused FirstEnergy's ask to carve out manufacturing. So it counts the load. Who gets cut is still open, with the Special Members Committee on October 22 and the refiling on the 29th. Here's Newzino:
The campus hit about 1 gigawatt of IT load in early October, which the analysis firm SemiAnalysis calls a first for a single-site data center. Colossus 2 is scheduled to grow to 1.21 million Nvidia GPUs by the end of 2026, fed by a 1.2-gigawatt gas plant in Southaven, Mississippi.
Memphis. Colossus 2 powered up October 9, and the campus is pulling roughly a gigawatt of IT load. Colossus 2 alone draws about 946 megawatts. That part's running. I'll give 'em that. And then the coverage starts stacking numbers that aren't the same kind of number. A gigawatt of IT load, per SemiAnalysis? Measured. 440,000 GB300s in use as of late September? Counted. 1.21 million GPUs by end of 2026 is a target, in three tranches. Six hundred sixty thousand chips that are not in the building. Back on the 8th we had Musk saying Colossus 2 could more than double its Nvidia count by December, with SpaceX and xAI in chip-debt talks. Talks. Nothing's closed. So that 1.21 million still leans on money that's being negotiated. And the power. The 1.2 gigawatt Southaven plant, forty-one gas turbines, permitted in March, across the state line in Mississippi. Permitted. I want a count of what's actually spinning before anybody calls that plant the thing feeding a million GPUs. Meanwhile, a day after power-up, Grok Enterprise. Private instances, zero data retention. Nothing funds 660,000 more GPUs quite like a sales tier. Ivan Tarin, writing in Tech Thought Leaders:
Meta’s Hyperion campus in Richland Parish will draw 4,500 megawatts, and the number became public only when the chief executive of Entergy Louisiana said it under questioning at a Louisiana Public Service Commission hearing on 7 October. That is more than four times the peak demand of New Orleans at around 1,100 megawatts, and about twice what every other Entergy Louisiana customer in the state uses.
Forty-five hundred megawatts for one Meta campus, and we only know because Entergy Louisiana's CEO, Phillip May, said it out loud under cross at the LPSC on October 7th. In a hearing where the judge kept clearing a reporter out of the room. And technically it wasn't even secret. A MISO report from September 8th had a West Fork Creek substation adding exactly 4,500 megawatts of new load. Nobody tied it to Hyperion until May did. For scale, New Orleans peaks around 1,100. Wyoming Electric's whole system peaks near 439. This one campus is roughly double every other Entergy Louisiana customer combined. Right, so here's what bugs me. Entergy wants seven 453-megawatt gas units on a fast track, no competitive bidding, a lot of the record confidential. That's over three gigawatts of gas, and after the FERC piece we just hit, there's no curtailment backstop sitting behind any of it. If Meta's load slips, that's a lot of turbine for the parish to keep paying off. Careful, though. Those units are proposed, the shared transmission costs are proposed, and the LPSC hasn't approved either. Until there's an order, it's a big number on a transcript and nothing more. This one's from The Desk:
The transaction doubles contracted power capacity at the Muskie Data Campus in eastern Kentucky from 500 megawatts (MW) to 1 gigawatt (GW) and accelerates the target delivery of the second 500 MW phase from 2030 to 2029, while the initial 500 MW phase remains targeted to begin ramping in 2028.
TeraWulf doubles Muskie to a full gigawatt with Kentucky Power, and the stock goes the other way. Fifteen forty-nine before the announcement, thirteen sixty-five by October eighth. The market read the same 8-K I did. And give the 8-K its due. Agreements executed October first, 500 to 1,000 megawatts contracted, phase two pulled forward from 2030 to 2029, phase one still ramping in 2028. That's a real utility contract with an AEP operating company. The 2 gigawatt figure, though? Internal evaluation. It's not in any agreement. Real contract, sure. Now read the financing paragraph. They need a bigger revolver and more senior secured debt just to post letters of credit to the utility, and they say there's no assurance they get it. Second Order by TKN points out there's no tenant yet either. So who's actually filling a gigawatt in eastern Kentucky? After Hyperion's 4,500 megawatts, one gig almost sounds quaint. But this one still needs Kentucky PSC approval, collateral they haven't raised, and a customer nobody's named. Contracted power, with a lot of homework left. From Stock Titan:
Digital Realty Trust, Inc. disclosed that its indirect finance subsidiary, Digital Euro Finco, LLC, issued and sold €1,000,000,000 aggregate principal amount of 5.125% Guaranteed Notes due October 9, 2036. The senior unsecured notes are fully and unconditionally guaranteed by Digital Realty Trust, Inc. and Digital Realty Trust, L.P.; initial purchasers paid 99.289% of principal.
Digital Realty raises a billion euros for green projects. Keep reading one more paragraph, though. Pending allocation, the money can pay down the revolver, fund acquisitions, cover working capital. Which is standard green-bond plumbing, Matt. The numbers I care about: 5.125 percent, due October 2036, priced at 99.289. Net proceeds about 985.8 million euros, through a finance sub called Digital Euro Finco. Standard plumbing, sure. But until they publish where it went, it's a revolver paydown with a leaf stamped on it. I'll hold them to the allocation report. But look at the term. Muskie's phase two is 2029, Hyperion's gas units are still sitting at proposed, and this is what the waiting costs. Ten-year money at five and an eighth. And if the tenant never shows up, the coupon still lands every October 9. Starting 2027. Ten of them. You may also like Power Bill, covering residential electric rates and utility cost shifts on weekdays. It's useful context for anyone following the data center energy story. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
We're watching PJM's Large Load Registry rules take effect October 12 for loads of 50 megawatts or more, with load-serving entities reporting each large load they serve.
You'll find links to every story in the show notes, so take a look at the ones that caught your attention. That's The Data Center Daily for today. We'll be back tomorrow. This is a Lantern Podcast.