It's Friday. Utility tariff schedules rarely make headlines. In Utah, one just lined up 600 MWh of batteries for a Meta data center.
In today's edition:
📅 Webinar: Structuring Gigawatts with Hans Royal and Christian Okoye, Nov. 19
🔋 Big Story: A Utah battery contracted for Meta under Schedule 34
⚡ Quick Hits: Oklo's test reactor cleared, 30 MW of solar baseload in the DRC, SoftBank's turbine hangover, Oncor's bigger capex plan, Zanskar's drilling permit
💰 Capital Stack: Torus raises $500M for power-plus-compute boxes
📋 Policy Watch: Ohio's coal closure bill, SPP's curtailable data center service, India's storage content rules
📊 Chart of the Day: bioenergy outgrew nuclear
But first…
📅 Event Announcement: Structuring Gigawatts (Virtual Event)
Presented by Grid Innovation Hub
Thursday, November 19 · 11 AM to 12 PM ET · Online · Hosted by Adam Shaw, Hans Royal, and Christian Okoye
Structuring Gigawatts is a one-hour online session where Hans Royal of RP Energy and Christian Okoye of Occam Edge walk through their joint research on what speed-to-power is worth to AI data centers, and how flexibility arrangements can work for data centers, utilities and investors.
Built for utility and RTO teams working on large-load interconnection, transmission planning and rate design, data center and hyperscaler power and procurement leads, developers and IPPs, infrastructure investors and lenders, and flexibility tech companies.
Hans Royal, Co-Founder & President, RP Energy
Christian Okoye, Co-Founder & CEO, Occam Edge
Adam Shaw, Founder, Grid Innovation Hub, and CMO, Integ (host)
The Big Story
Utah battery serves Meta's data center through a utility tariff
Lydian Energy's 150 MW/600 MWh standalone LFP battery in Utah County has been in commercial operation since Sept. 18 and is contracted under Rocky Mountain Power's Schedule 34 tariff for Meta's Eagle Mountain data center, ESS News reported. The project provides contracted storage capacity to PacifiCorp under a long-term agreement and shares the substation and grid interconnection of the neighboring 525 MW Faraday solar plant.
"Storage is an essential part of a resilient grid"
Schedule 34 is Rocky Mountain Power's tariff for renewable energy purchases by qualified customers of 5,000 kW and over.
Lydian says the battery went from mobilization to commercial operation in about 10 months.
A second phase, Faraday BESS 2, is in development at up to 375 MW/1,500 MWh, targeting service in Q4 2028.
A $689 million February financing led by CIBC and MUFG covered the battery plus two solar projects, though it sized the first phase at 150 MW/733 MWh.
Source: ESS News
Build energy apps with AI without exposing critical data.
Turn your operational data (SCADA, OMS, PI, etc.) into validated, audit-ready apps. Analysts ship in weeks without complicated IT workflows.
100% CIP and cybersecurity safe.
Start free and build your first analyst application at no cost. Just bring your use case.
Quick Hits
Small bites from across the grid.
A reactor gets the green light, solar runs all night, turbines lose their shine.
Oklo got DOE clearance past the final operations hold point for its Groves Isotope Test Reactor near Lockhart, Texas, which reached criticality in August and can now run research, testing and training. World Nuclear News
Kamoa-Kakula, the DRC copper complex, now draws a guaranteed 30 MW of round-the-clock power from 233 MW of solar paired with 526 MWh of batteries, firm solar at industrial scale. pv magazine
SoftBank put deposits on more than 13 GW of gas turbines, about 50% more than it needed, and tied over half of a $7.1 billion quarterly loss to power equipment, TechCrunch reported. Analysts expect a tilt toward grid connections plus batteries. TechCrunch
Oncor's capital plan, now $47.5 billion for 2026 to 2030, should rise about 20% in its February update on load growth, according to remarks on parent Sempra's third-quarter call. T&D World
Zanskar subsidiary Norte Geothermal won a BLM categorical exclusion to drill 15 confirmation wells near Battle Mountain, Nevada, pending a 30-day appeal period. ThinkGeoEnergy
The Capital Stack
Torus raises $500M to put power and compute in one box
Salt Lake City's Torus raised $500 million led by Magnetar, with ICONIQ, Origin Ventures, Ridgeline Partners and Trinity Capital participating, and launched Foundry, a modular unit that combines power, storage, cooling, networking and compute. Utah Business reported that Foundry sites deliver 1 to 20 MW and install at existing commercial and industrial sites in 12 to 16 weeks, with Hydra Host and an unnamed AI cloud provider as first customers. The Tech Capital called it a Series C.
Source: Utah Business, The Tech Capital
Also in the capital stack:
Fermi said an unnamed investment-grade hyperscaler agreed to an initial 600 MW from 2027 at its Project Matador campus, with a $200 million prepayment, though the lease itself is not yet signed. Fermi
Policy Watch
Ohio Republicans are circulating a draft bill that would override settlement-mandated coal plant closures, past and future, and hit the 620 MW Cardinal unit due to retire by end-2028, Canary Media reported. Passage would lock in coal capacity just as PJM load forecasts climb. Canary Media
SPP's CHILLS service, approved by FERC in June, gives data centers up to seven years of non-firm transmission that can be curtailed at any time with no notice or hour cap, Latitude Media reported. That is a template for trading flexibility for faster grid access. Latitude Media
India's Ministry of Power proposed adding domestic content requirements for battery storage to its competitive bidding guidelines. If adopted, imported systems face a narrower path into India's storage tenders. Mercom
Chart of the Day:
Bioenergy outgrew nuclear over the last decade
Bioenergy supplied 6% of global generation growth from 2015 to 2025, versus about 5% for nuclear, per IEA data.
Source: RenewEconomy · Nov. 13, 2026
Like our newsletter?
Or forward this link: {{rp_refer_url}}
You currently have {{rp_num_referrals}} referrals. We're building out rewards for our most active members!
Who We Follow
And you should too!
Loved it? Forward it.
And reply back with some news and stories we should include tomorrow!
