Episode #152
Data Centers Drive Interconnection and Governance Fights
The week ending August 28 was operationally uneventful across nearly every North American market—no heat emergencies, demand records, or scarcity intervals surfaced in the reporting window—but it was among the busiest weeks of the summer for the policy fights that will shape prices for years. A single theme tied the continent together: the interconnection and cost-allocation strain created by large data-center load. In ERCOT, Governor Greg Abbott’s demand for an audit of roughly 300 data-center projects put the market’s “Batch Zero” interconnection process on a compressed December timeline against a queue that has swelled to some 474 GW. In PJM, consumer advocates from six states and the District of Columbia asked FERC to reject the Reliability Backstop Procurement, warning that its roughly $20 billion budget and elevated $555/MW-day cap would shift data-center-driven costs onto residential ratepayers. In Alberta, fresh analysis warned that connecting Meta’s planned load could raise consumer bills. The common question everywhere was not whether the load is coming, but who pays to serve it. To read the full report: https://vedeni.energy/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/082826_Weekly_Market_Report.pdf

