Everybody wants giant new loads in the fast lane. Nobody’s agreed who’s holding the map. Quick catch-up: FERC’s June 18 Section 206 show-cause orders put six RTOs and ISOs on the clock to explain or revise how they handle large-user interconnections, including data centers and manufacturing facilities. ISO-NE has already outlined a BYOG Section 205 filing by Nov. 16, with detailed implementation rules expected in 2027. This is Power Grid Daily. BPA, CAISO, and NERC are all rewriting the rulebook today—and the hardware underneath it is facing a new cyber warning. Here's Henrik Nilsson at RTO Insider:
The Bonneville Power Administration is designing a new product to fast-track the interconnection of large loads under an initiative aimed at overhauling the agency’s transmission planning processes. The Rapid Access Products and Interconnection Delivery (RAPID) program is being designed to bridge the gap between large loads’ immediate need for interconnection and BPA’s long-term goal to speed up the interconnection process for all customers, Rebecca Fredrickson, RAPID co-lead, explained at a meeting Aug. 19.
BPA’s building RAPID around a 64-gigawatt queue. Call it fast-track if you want, but I’d like to see the transformer slots and substation build calendar that make “rapid” physically possible. What matters is BPA admitting this is an interim product while the broader expansion gets built. Co-located generation can ease that first constraint—until a system event forces curtailment. Then the tariff has to say whose risk that is. And “dispatchable load” during curtailments needs teeth. If a campus says it can back off, BPA needs a tested operating profile, not a promise made while the interconnection agreement is still on the table. Travis Kavulla says RAPID has to protect existing ratepayers. Good—because a bridge product becomes a subsidy very quickly if the new customer gets early access and everyone else funds the permanent reinforcement. From RTO Insider:
CAISO is working on solutions to the growing uncertainty in load forecasting in California stemming from new large loads such as data centers. The ISO held a workshop Aug. 19 to address its large load straw proposal that was published in response to FERC’s show-cause order on the issue.
Back to FERC’s June large-load orders: CAISO is now stress-testing how data-center demand complicates its forecasting model. More than 150 people showed up Aug. 19 because the tariff question has become painfully concrete: where is the load, and can the ISO see it before it distorts the forecast? CAISO’s looking at three or four years of history, and Amber Motley’s point is dead on: an AI campus doesn’t behave like residential demand on a hot Tuesday. If it ramps differently, moves load around, or has a hard minimum draw, averaging the past will miss the operating day in front of you. “Conforming” is awfully loose here. CAISO is asking for operating profiles, metered demand, schedules, and limits because these loads have been entering planning assumptions with far more confidence than evidence. And a profile can’t just be a glossy estimate from the developer. Give CAISO the actual ramp limits and the interruptibility terms—otherwise the day-ahead forecast is guessing whether a very large customer can flex when the grid needs it. Here's RTO Insider:
Members of NERC’s Standards Committee agreed at their monthly open meeting Aug. 19 to wrap up multiple ongoing projects amid the ERO’s transition to its new standards development process. The committee also approved industry comment periods for a new group of standards aimed at addressing the reliability challenges of computational large loads. The SC ended 12 projects, all considered low or medium priority by the ERO.
NERC shut down 12 low- and medium-priority standards projects on Aug. 19 while opening comment on computational-load rules. Pretty clear triage: clear the backlog and put the data-center reliability work on a federal clock. Six projects were rejected before they even reached an initial draft; six more were concluded because they were further along. Fine—just don’t confuse a cleaner standards docket with a substation that can actually serve the load. We just heard BPA trying to bridge a 64-gigawatt queue, and CAISO asking large loads for ramping limits and operating profiles. NERC’s Sept. 18 comment window and Dec. 31 FERC deadline put a reliability framework next to those tariff experiments—but those timelines plainly don’t line up. You can write a standard requiring a computational load to behave predictably. It won’t make a hyperscaler’s forecast honest or its interruptibility clause firm. Those are contract terms, and operators need them before the emergency—not after. This one's from RTO Insider:
Cyber criminals are using artificial intelligence to power their attacks in what U.S. security agencies are calling “an evolution in threat actor capabilities.” The warning came in an Aug. 19 alert issued by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the FBI and the National Security Agency about an ongoing campaign against U.S. critical infrastructure, including the energy sector.
AI-generated scripts posing as monitoring tools and going after Siemens S7 PLCs—that’s a nasty way into a substation or plant control environment. Read/write access is enough to turn reconnaissance into an operating problem. CISA, DOE, EPA, FBI, and NSA put this alert out together on Aug. 19. That’s an unusually broad federal chorus for a threat that can reach in through public-facing, outdated equipment. And AI matters here because it lowers the skill barrier for the attacker. You don’t need some cinematic hacker genius if the script can find an exposed S7, mimic a monitoring tool, and start probing defenses. We’ve spent this episode on bigger loads demanding more data and faster interconnection. That also means more telemetry, more control interfaces, and more pressure to get cyber requirements into the operating terms before equipment is energized. If your team needs a daily briefing on your own power market, your competitors, or your beat, Lantern makes private versions like this one for your whole team’s podcast feed. Learn more at lantern podcasts dot com slash briefings, with a 14-day free trial.
You’ll find links to every story we covered in the show notes, along with the sources behind them. Take a look at whichever ones you want to explore further. Thanks for listening, and have a good weekend. That’s Power Grid Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.