It's Wednesday. For two decades the interconnection fight was about where to put new generation. PJM's board just turned it into a question about who has to bring it.
In today's edition:
🔌 Big Story: PJM puts new large loads on the hook for their own supply
⚡ Quick Hits: CenterPoint's 14 GW, a storage company breaks ground on a data center
💰 Capital: Modo Energy's $17M for battery analytics
📋 Policy Watch: Israel freezes data center interconnection
The Big Story
PJM proposes curtailing large loads that bring no power.
PJM's Board of Managers released a proposal on Monday that pairs a one-time backstop capacity auction with a new service class for large loads. If FERC approves, the auction runs September 30 to October 21, seeking roughly 6.8 GW minus any bilateral contracts signed before it, with accepted supply offers capped at $555/MW-day against the $325/MW-day temporary cap used in the last base auction, on 15-year commitments for resources online by June 1, 2032. The companion piece, an Interim Resource Adequacy Service that PJM previously called connect and manage, would require new large loads bringing no supply of their own to reduce load or switch to on-site backup when the system nears emergency conditions, starting June 1, 2027. The board expects PJM to file both with FERC before the end of this month.
"Existing consumers should not bear higher capacity costs caused by new large loads that do not bring, or otherwise contract for, the new supply necessary to serve them." PJM Board of Managers, letter to stakeholders, July 27, 2026, via Utility Dive
PJM projects 70 GW of large-load growth across its footprint by 2038.
Independent market monitor Joseph Bowring attributes $29.4 billion of added capacity cost across the last four auctions to data center load sitting in them, and said that figure accelerates if PJM succeeds in raising the auction cap.
TechCrunch reported that the curtailment obligation would apply to data centers of 50 MW and larger, and that curtailed customers would be compensated as they are under conventional demand response. The Utility Dive account states neither, so both are single-sourced for now.
The service terms would still have to be set by utilities and transmission owners and approved by state or local regulators, so the June 2027 date depends on a second round of approvals.
Source: Utility Dive · TechCrunch
Quick Hits
Technology milestones from across the grid
Four stories, from Houston's queue to a Malaysian tender.
CenterPoint Energy told investors it has submitted more than 17 GW to ERCOT's new Batch Zero large-load process and expects about 14 GW to qualify, a volume equal to roughly two-thirds of its 21 GW Houston peak, backed by around $900 million in customer cash commitments. Utility Dive
Energy Vault broke ground in Snyder, Texas on the first data center it will own, built from ten Crusoe Spark modular units, an unusual step for a company whose business has been selling storage into other people's projects. Data Center Dynamics
Malaysia opened its next large-scale solar round seeking 2.5 GW of PV with 1.25 GW of battery storage required on site, making co-location a condition of bidding rather than an option. Energy-Storage.news
Xcel Energy is working with Google to bring to Colorado the clean transition tariff structure the two first built in Nevada, a template that bills a large customer for the clean supply its own load requires, Latitude Media reported. Latitude Media
The Capital Stack
Modo Energy raises $17 million to scale battery analytics.
London-based Modo Energy raised US$17 million in growth funding led by CIBC Innovation Banking, its largest single commitment to date and roughly six months after a $50 million Series B, taking total funding to $52 million. Modo benchmarks battery revenue, dispatch, and spreads in ERCOT and Great Britain, the reference data storage investors underwrite against, and the company said the money goes toward scaling that platform.
Source: pv magazine Australia
Also in the capital stack:
InoBat, the Slovak battery cell maker and storage system integrator, plans to list on Nasdaq through a SPAC combination. Energy-Storage.news
Policy Watch
Israel's Electrical Authority suspended grid interconnection processing for every data center of 8 MW or more for 140 days, stalling a national large-load pipeline for close to five months while the regulator reworks the rules. Data Center Dynamics
California launched MyFirstEV, a $3,500 rebate available only to first-time EV buyers and the state's first substantial answer to the lapsed federal credit, which shapes how quickly new flexible charging load shows up on the distribution system. Canary Media
Who We Follow
And you should too!
Loved it? Forward it.
And reply back with some news and stories we should include tomorrow!