Twelve thousand eight hundred seventy megawatts requested. One hundred seventy-four energized. That's PG&E's data center ledger: what's in the pipeline, and what it has connected since 2024. And the gap between those two numbers is where developers live. Good morning, this is The Data Center Daily for Monday, October 26th. We start with PG&E putting large load on its deferral list. Then South Korea's energy minister calls a lot of AI data center demand vague, NERC asks FERC to hurry up and register data center owners, and SpaceXAI reports a stormwater problem in Mississippi to the SEC.
Colocation Scout, reading PG&E's third-quarter filings:
PG&E's third quarter 2026 earnings presentation, furnished October 22, 2026, shows 12,870 MW of new data center load in its pipeline as of September 2026, up from 12,710 MW in June. Most of it, 8,350 MW, is at the application and preliminary engineering stage.
Those materials went out Thursday with the 8-K. The rest of the stack: 3,880 megawatts across 18 projects in final engineering, 400 megawatts with an executed construction agreement, and 240 in construction. Getting into the first stage takes an application and a 500,000 dollar study fee. Final engineering takes a payment PG&E puts at 10 percent of estimated project cost. So a half-million-dollar ticket gets you into the 8,350 megawatt bucket. That's not a pipeline, that's a waiting room. The real number is 640 megawatts that have signed or broken ground. The line that matters is on the capital plan slide. PG&E lists large load beyond an initial 1.8 gigawatts among work to be delayed or deferred, next to new housing connections and renewable interconnections. 2028 through 2030 is marked pending a strategic review, and PG&E is implementing a previously announced 2 billion dollar cut to its 2027 capital plan. And nobody says what's in the 1.8, who's outside it, or how long the wait is. If you're siting in Northern California, get your stage and your energization date in writing. PG&E also says that with appropriate pricing, each gigawatt of new data center load could help customers save 1 percent or more on monthly bills. Colocation Scout notes that's a company estimate, not a measured result, and that the presentation never says whether those megawatts are peak demand or contracted load.
Joo Jae-hyun, writing in the Seoul Economic Daily, with Climate, Energy and Environment Minister Kim Sung-hwan:
When we announced the three mega-projects, we tried to reflect corporate demand as fully as possible, but once we got into it, not much demand has actually been firmed up in concrete terms. It is difficult to put all of this vague demand into the 12th electricity plan, so we will take into account companies' plans and realistic demand.
That was at a National Assembly audit on Monday, Korea time. The government's blueprint calls for 18.4 gigawatts of AI data centers by 2035, with SK, GS and NAVER building 8.4 gigawatts by 2029. Only confirmed demand goes into the 12th Basic Plan. And just in August, the ministry had raised its 2040 peak demand estimate for these facilities from 4 gigawatts to 11.9. So the demand number nearly tripled, and two months later the minister is walking it back. Grid planners everywhere know this movie. You size the wires to the press release, then find out who actually signed. The paper separates the builders. GS has started construction in Donghae, targeting 1.2 gigawatts in 2028 and another 1.2 in 2029. NAVER has a Sejong site and an Nvidia partnership for 100 megawatts in 2027. SK, apart from a 100 megawatt-class site in Ulsan with AWS, has said nothing on the 4 gigawatts it agreed to build. Which is awkward timing. On Friday, SK Hyper's CEO Chung Suk-geun told Bloomberg Television it's in talks to fund 15 gigawatts in Korea by 2035, with the first 5 gigawatts alone needing 350 billion dollars including equipment. He also said they'd pace it to actual demand. One more number from research firm AI-DC Korea: as of the first quarter, 522 projects totaling 3.4 gigawatts had applied for grid impact assessments, and only 10, about 1 gigawatt, had secured power. The ministry says the size of the cut hasn't been decided.
Paul Ciampoli, writing for the American Public Power Association:
Based on the newly emerging reliability risks and recommended mitigation, NERC is proposing for the first time to regulate certain large customers based on their impact on the reliable operation of the BPS.
NERC filed this at FERC on Wednesday, October 21st. It's the registry piece of the arc we've followed since the standards cleared their final ballot on the 15th. The filing adds two functional entities, Computational Load Owner and Computational Load Operator, for sites with at least 50 megawatts of connected load supplied at 100 kV or above. The thing that matters is the word customer. NERC has always regulated the people who own and run the grid. Now the tenant in the data hall can end up on the compliance registry, with mandatory standards attached. NERC says the threshold captures about 86 percent of all computational load projected by the end of 2027. It's asking FERC for expedited treatment on the registry criteria alone. The reliability standards and implementation plans come in a separate filing, which is due by December 31st. And the reason given is the one PJM laid out last week. Load that drops off during a normal grid fault. NERC's line is that computational load, quote, "did not behave like other large load." Nearly four gigawatts going to backup in July will do that. The practical point for operators: NERC wants approved criteria early so regional entities can start outreach to likely registrants before any standard takes effect. If your campus clears 50 megawatts at transmission voltage, expect a call.
Abdul-Rahman Oladimeji, reporting on SpaceXAI's quarterly filing:
SpaceXAI, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, disclosed Thursday that Mississippi environmental regulators say construction started at three of its Southaven sites before required stormwater permits were in place, with potential penalties of up to $6.1 million.
The disclosure came Thursday, October 22nd, in the report filed with the SEC. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality issued notices of violation in August to MZX Tech, the affiliate behind the Southaven power plant. MDEQ is seeking up to 25,000 dollars a day. The three sites are the data center, the Stanton Road gas plant, and a 51-acre parcel acquired in a land swap with the city. First the air permit fight, now stormwater. Break ground, then paper it. Six million dollars against what DCD reports was 16.4 billion in capital projects in a single quarter. That's not a deterrent, that's a line item. MZX Tech says it's cooperating and negotiating to resolve all three through a single agreed order. Separately, the NAACP's Clean Air Act suit over the Stanton Road turbines continues; last week we noted the judge rejected the Justice Department's bid to dismiss it. Here's my question for the ten gigawatts Musk promised for 2027 on last week's call. If permits keep trailing construction at 495 megawatts, what happens at twenty times that? For scale, Baxtel's records show 100 megawatts operational at the Southaven facility and about 295 under construction, toward roughly 495. Neither fight has slowed construction so far, the piece says.
PG&E's 1 percent bill savings claim is exactly the kind of number our sister show tests. Power Bill follows residential electric rates and utility cost shifts every weekday, so you know what hits your bill next month before it does. Look for Power Bill in the same app you're using now.
On my watch list: CAISO's large-load board vote on Wednesday, and whether PG&E ever says what's inside that 1.8 gigawatts. Mine is how far Seoul actually trims. We'll be here tomorrow, Tuesday. The Data Center Daily is a Lantern Podcast. Have a good start to the week.