Top story, 12 October 2026: FERC rejects PJM's plan to curtail new data centres that bring no capacity, accepts a 50 MW large-load registry. 11 items this week on the United States desk, each linked to its source (FERC order, ER26-3515-000 (197 FERC ¶ 61,019)).
On 9 Oct FERC accepted PJM's definition of a Large Load (50 MW or more of peak at one site, affiliated loads within one mile counted together) and a Large Load Registry, effective 12 Oct. It rejected the rest of PJM's 13 Aug filing: the Interim Resource Adequacy Service, under which new large loads without matching new capacity could be curtailed from June 2027, the bring-your-own-new-capacity rules, and removing such loads from the capacity auction's demand curve. FERC found parts of the plan appear to regulate retail customers, outside its authority, and that PJM had not justified the rest, and it gave guidance for a refiling. PJM had told FERC it will be short of capacity from the 2027/28 delivery year, largely because of data-centre growth.
Why it matters. The largest US grid market has lost, for now, its tool for rationing power to new data centres after they connect. European operators ration at the point of connection instead; PJM is left with price, and its last auction cleared at the cap.
Our data addsPJM's 2028/29 capacity auction cleared at the $325/MW-day cap and 6,831 MW short of its reliability requirement (PJM, 14 Jul 2026). Our Europe restrictions table counts 10 connection rules among 32 measures (Ireland, Denmark, Belgium, Germany), the stage PJM's order leaves to US states./us/power-crunch →/europe/data-centre-restrictions →
50 MW
Large Load threshold (cumulative peak at one site)
Next, 22 October 2026: PJM special Members Committee on the backstop procurement; registry compliance filing due within 30 days of 9 Oct; 2029/30 auction in December
Why it matters. Three days after FERC accepted Duke's wholesale terms, the retail side is being fixed by settlement with the buyers themselves. For Europe, it is a worked template of who pays for no-show loads, set in the tariff before connection.
Why it matters. Uprates add firm power inside existing grid connections, the scarcest input in PJM. Contracts with Google, Meta and Amazon and a federal loan offer now back about 1.5 GW of new nuclear output in PJM, from 2028 on.
On 9 Oct FERC accepted PJM's definition of a Large Load (50 MW or more of peak at one site, affiliated loads within one mile counted together) and a Large Load Registry, effective 12 Oct. It rejected the rest of PJM's 13 Aug filing: the Interim Resource Adequacy Service, under which new large loads without matching new capacity could be curtailed from June 2027, the bring-your-own-new-capacity rules, and removing such loads from the capacity auction's demand curve. FERC found parts of the plan appear to regulate retail customers, outside its authority, and that PJM had not justified the rest, and it gave guidance for a refiling. PJM had told FERC it will be short of capacity from the 2027/28 delivery year, largely because of data-centre growth.
Why it matters. The largest US grid market has lost, for now, its tool for rationing power to new data centres after they connect. European operators ration at the point of connection instead; PJM is left with price, and its last auction cleared at the cap.
Our data addsPJM's 2028/29 capacity auction cleared at the $325/MW-day cap and 6,831 MW short of its reliability requirement (PJM, 14 Jul 2026). Our Europe restrictions table counts 10 connection rules among 32 measures (Ireland, Denmark, Belgium, Germany), the stage PJM's order leaves to US states./us/power-crunch →/europe/data-centre-restrictions →
50 MW
Large Load threshold (cumulative peak at one site)
Next, 22 October 2026: PJM special Members Committee on the backstop procurement; registry compliance filing due within 30 days of 9 Oct; 2029/30 auction in December
On 6 Oct Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress filed a settlement on a large-load tariff with the North Carolina Utilities Commission (dockets E-7 Sub 1329, E-2 Sub 1380). Signatories include the Public Staff, Amazon Data Services, Google, Microsoft and the Defense Department. It covers loads of 50 MW+ at 80% load factor, or 150 MW+ at any load factor: customers prepay dedicated facilities, post letters of credit for network upgrades, commit for 10 or 15 years and pay at least 75% of contract demand. Exit notice runs 24 to 48 months by size. The Commission has yet to approve it; the tariff would apply from 1 Jan 2027.
Why it matters. Three days after FERC accepted Duke's wholesale terms, the retail side is being fixed by settlement with the buyers themselves. For Europe, it is a worked template of who pays for no-show loads, set in the tariff before connection.
75%
minimum billing demand as a share of contract demand
Constellation and Google signed a 20-year power purchase agreement on 6 Oct to fund 890 MW of uprates at 11 reactors on six sites in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey (over $4.3bn of Constellation investment, first uprate by 2028), plus a 15-year supply deal for 2,700 MW of existing PJM output. On 5 Oct DOE offered Vistra a conditional loan of up to $4.2bn for uprates adding 433 MW at Beaver Valley, Davis-Besse and Perry; Power Engineering reports that capacity is part of Vistra's 20-year PPAs with Meta. On 30 Sep Constellation and Amazon announced a 20-year PPA tied to a 190 MW expansion of Calvert Cliffs, due 2030-2032 (Utility Dive).
Why it matters. Uprates add firm power inside existing grid connections, the scarcest input in PJM. Contracts with Google, Meta and Amazon and a federal loan offer now back about 1.5 GW of new nuclear output in PJM, from 2028 on.
Our data addsPJM's 2028/29 auction cleared 524.7 MW (UCAP) of new generation and uprates (PJM, 14 Jul 2026). These uprates total about 1,513 MW nameplate, due 2028-2034: not like for like, but roughly three times what the last auction drew./us/power-crunch →
Black Hills Corp. said on 6 Oct (8-K) it has signed agreements, effective 30 Sep and running to 2048, to serve a planned Google data centre in Cheyenne, Wyoming. A non-regulated affiliate will build 564 MW (nameplate) of new gas generation at its Cheyenne Prairie station for $1.8bn over 2027-2029, giving up to 590 MW of grid-connected service with market purchases. Black Hills will also manage about 2.1 GW of third-party Wyoming resources through a private microgrid under its Large Power Contract Service tariff: 2.7 GW in all with reserves. Service starts in late 2027 and reaches peak load in 2030. The company says Google bears all costs of serving the site, and that Google has advanced $399m, refundable, for long-lead equipment.
Why it matters. A utility building dedicated gas and a private microgrid for one customer, who pays all costs, is one way US data centres get around grid queues. Ireland's 2025 rules also make data centres bring their own dispatchable generation; Wyoming shows the scale that model reaches in the US.
New to our dataNot yet in our US campus table, which lists 9 gas-backed campuses (20.4 GW announced), including Project Jade (Tallgrass/Crusoe, 1,150 MW) in the same county. Ireland's CRU connection policy (Dec 2025) requires new data centres to bring dispatchable generation or storage./us/power-crunch →/europe/data-centre-restrictions →
564 MW
new gas generation (nameplate) at Cheyenne Prairie
A Spartanburg County, SC judge dismissed residents' challenge to Valara Holdings' $2.8bn data centre on 6 Oct for lack of standing and a skipped administrative appeal, without ruling on the merits; the group says it will appeal (FOX Carolina). In Colleton County, SC, a settlement with SELC's clients creates a Data Center Exclusion Area over most of the county's ACE Basin (Live 5, 5 Oct). On 8 Oct Quantum Maryland sued Frederick County, MD and County Executive Jessica Fitzwater, alleging her freeze on data-centre applications was political; she calls the claims false (WBFF).
Why it matters. Courts are now deciding where US campuses go as often as zoning boards are: one challenge failed on procedure, one ended in a mapped no-build zone, and a developer is testing whether a local freeze can be undone in court.
$2.8bn
Valara Holdings' Spartanburg County data-centre investment
Loudoun County's Board of Supervisors took no action on 6 Oct on ending the 2025 grandfathering that lets some data-centre projects proceed through staff review without a Board vote, after the county attorney warned it could cost $60m in litigation; the chair tabled the item, and a motion to hire an outside auditor, for a later meeting (FOX 5 DC). The county counts at least 17 grandfathered cases totalling more than 11 million sq ft, which its 15 Sep pause does not touch. That pause, passed 7-1-1, defers Board action on legislative data-centre and substation applications during the Phase 2 rules review, within Virginia's 12-month limit; staff bring the formal resolution on 20 Oct (county statement, 16 Sep).
Why it matters. In Loudoun, the core of Northern Virginia's Data Center Alley, the pause slows new rezonings while grandfathered projects keep moving. The legal cost of reversing past approvals sets how fast a county can brake.
Memphis City Council narrowly voted on 6 Oct to put off its final vote on a moratorium on new data centres until 20 Oct, after protests halted the meeting (WMC/Gray News; Commercial Appeal). On 9 Oct Mayor Paul Young issued an executive order for a 90-day study recommending rules for hyperscale data centres on land use, neighbourhood protections, air quality and energy and utility costs, with at least three public sessions; it does not impose a moratorium (Commercial Appeal). The Shelby County Commission is to take a first vote on a moratorium of its own (Daily Memphian, 11 Oct; date not given). xAI's Colossus sites are in the Memphis area.
Why it matters. Memphis is home to xAI's Colossus 1, in our US campus table. The 20 Oct vote shows whether local opposition can slow growth at an established AI cluster, not only stop new sites.
Our data addsOur US campus table lists xAI Colossus 1 (Memphis, 247 MW of permitted turbines, Shelby County Health Department, Jul 2025) and the Colossus 2 plant at Southaven, Mississippi (1,200 MW)./us/power-crunch →
Manatee County, Florida, adopted a 12-month stop on new data-centre applications in unincorporated areas on 8 Oct (Ordinance 26-42) while it writes rules; Florida's new law defines a large-scale data centre as 50 MW or more of monthly peak load (Bradenton Times). Lexington-Fayette's council voted 11-0 on 8 Oct to extend its moratorium to 31 Oct 2027 (WUKY). San Francisco supervisors unanimously passed a 45-day moratorium on 6 Oct; Oakland and Los Angeles County are weighing similar steps (KTVU). Not every pause holds: on 6 Oct a Missouri circuit court enjoined Benton County's August moratorium, finding it rested on no findings that data centres harm health, in a suit by developer NSI 6 over a 12-acre site in Warsaw (KMMO).
Why it matters. Local land-use pauses keep spreading in the US, now including the Bay Area, and courts are starting to test them. Europe's brakes are mostly grid-connection rules: our restrictions table has no active local moratorium.
Our data addsOur Europe restrictions table (32 measures, 11 Oct) has 5 moratoriums, none active (3 proposed, 1 lifted, 1 replaced), against 10 connection rules. We do not yet count US local moratoriums./europe/data-centre-restrictions →
On 9 Oct FERC accepted Duke Energy Carolinas' revised network transmission service agreement, effective 1 Aug 2026. Wholesale customers adding or moving 100 MW or more of load must commit for 15 years and pay a shortfall charge if their use falls below 75% of the scheduled MW, so that grid upgrades built for a load that never arrives are not paid for by others. Duke told FERC it applies the same 100 MW threshold and 15-year term to retail customers, and that nine requests for new large loads of 102 MW to 945 MW have reached it since 2012. Two commissioners concurred separately; Commissioner Chang dissented, saying the 15-year commitment is backed by little security, about one to five months of transmission revenue.
Why it matters. Who carries the risk of a data centre that never shows up is being settled tariff by tariff. FERC accepted a 15-year minimum-payment model for wholesale customers, with a dissent on how little security backs it.
Developers withdrew the rezoning application for a 2.5m sq ft, eight-building data-centre campus in north-east Brighton, CO, and on 6 Oct the city council gave initial approval to a one-year moratorium on new data centres while it writes rules (Denver7, CPR). The city says it has no sign the plan will be resubmitted. In North Carolina, Beaufort County commissioners voted 6-1 on 5 Oct for a one-year moratorium on accepting or approving data-centre applications, although none is proposed there (WITN).
Why it matters. Pre-emptive pauses keep spreading to places with no live project, and in Brighton the backlash ended a campus before any vote. The US count of local pauses is now a running number to set against Europe's national restrictions.
The Alabama Public Service Commission voted on 6 Oct to adopt procedures for reviewing Alabama Power's contracts with large data centres covered by Act 2026-610, those of 150 MW or more (SELC). Commissioners must vote on each contract within 90 days, but a contract is deemed approved if they do not; July's draft had a 60-day deemed approval. Alabama Power files a public summary naming the customer, location and maximum contracted capacity, and a confidential package with the full contract and a cost-revenue analysis, including a Rate Impact Measure test, for PSC staff and the Attorney General. There is no public hearing or intervention in individual reviews (WBMA).
Why it matters. Who pays for data-centre power is being settled state by state. Alabama chose a fast, mostly confidential review; Duke's FERC-accepted terms rely on 15-year minimum payments instead.
44 news sources and 34 watched pages (20 of them the primary sources behind this site's own datasets). 2 daily runs so far: 120 lines scored, 11 kept. Each source's score is the share of its recent checks that found something worth keeping; the scan spends most of its fixed daily budget at the top of this list and a few slots on the least-known sources. Each watched page learns how often it really changes.
Source
Desk
Score
Checks
Kept
Google News: county rezonings, permits and moratoriums
US
75%
1
6
Google News: Northern Virginia data-centre fights
US
75%
1
3
Google News: withdrawals, cancellations, delays
US
67%
1
5
Google News: data-centre lawsuits
US
67%
1
4
Google News: nuclear deals for data centres
US
67%
1
2
Power Engineering
US
67%
1
1
US Department of Energy newsroom
US
67%
1
1
Google News: federal data-centre policy
US
67%
1
1
Google News: Georgia data centres and Georgia Power
US
67%
1
1
Federal Register
US
67%
0
0
Loudoun County data-centre pipeline (GIS)
US
67%
0
0
Prince William County data-centre campuses (GIS)
US
67%
0
0
Questions people ask
Why does a European site track US data-centre news?
Europe's AI build is measured against America's. The US desk tracks what sets the pace there (grid access, local permits, power deals and capital) so the site's Europe-versus-US comparisons rest on current events, not last year's.