Utilities, regulators, and lawmakers are all groping toward the same question from different directions: who pays for the next wave of power infrastructure? FERC approved another round of data-center transmission deals in Illinois. California’s appeals court upheld the tariff change that kneecapped rooftop solar economics. Ohio lawmakers are floating a bill that would let utilities own nuclear again, which is either a long-term firm-power bet or an invitation to rate-base mischief, depending on your tolerance for history.

If the last few years were about load growth, this week was about the mechanisms underneath it: contracts, tariffs, ownership structures, and all the dreary machinery that decides whether abundance gets built or politicized into scarcity.

FERC approved five new transmission security agreements between ComEd and data center developers including Equinix, QTS, and others. The contracts include ramp schedules, credit obligations, committed revenue contributions, shortfall payments, and termination fees designed to keep existing customers from absorbing the costs of serving large new loads.

The split at FERC is over whether those bilateral contracts are enough. Chairman Laura Swett and Commissioner David LaCerte defended the agreements under the Mobile-Sierra standard, while Commissioner Judy Chang warned they may not provide sufficient protection against future cost shifts to ratepayers.

Why it matters - For the grid: this is what the next phase of data center growth looks like, not abstract load forecasts but bespoke legal and financial machinery built to fence off risk.

For policy: FERC is quietly acknowledging that large-load interconnection cannot run on the old assumption that everyone just shares the costs and hopes for the best.

GridTake - The interesting thing here is not that FERC approved more contracts. It’s that the commission is slowly building a new doctrine for hyperscale load: if you want the capacity, you may have to underwrite the consequences. That’s a long way from saying data centers are fully paying their own way, but it is a long way from the old socialized shrug too.

A California appeals court upheld the state’s NEM 3.0 tariff, preserving the 2022 changes that sharply reduced compensation for rooftop solar exports. The court rejected arguments from environmental and consumer groups that the CPUC failed to account for the social benefits of customer-generated power and improperly favored non-solar customers.

The ruling leaves in place a policy change that the California Solar and Storage Association previously linked to a 77% to 85% drop in residential solar sales from 2022.

Why it matters - For the grid: California is continuing its pivot away from paying premium rates for distributed solar exports that hit the system at increasingly inconvenient times.

For markets: the ruling reinforces a broader trend in which distributed energy is expected to compete more on actual grid value and less on moral prestige.

GridTake - NEM 3.0 survives because the old rooftop-solar bargain became too expensive to defend. California spent years treating behind-the-meter generation as a civic virtue worthy of overpayment. Now the bill has come due, and even California appears to be conceding that abundance needs better pricing than sentiment.

Ohio lawmakers are circulating draft legislation that would let utilities build, own, and operate advanced nuclear plants, carving out an exception to last year’s law barring utility ownership of generation. The bill would allow utilities to rate-base the facilities and recover costs through distribution rates, with large customers such as data centers signing 20-year participation agreements.

Supporters say the bill would help meet long-term demand growth. Critics warn it could reopen the door to cost shifting, accounting games, and a repeat of the state’s past utility-generation scandals.

Why it matters - For the grid: advanced nuclear is becoming a serious part of long-term planning in states that expect major load growth.

For ratepayers: utility ownership changes who bears risk if nuclear projects come in late, over budget, or no longer make economic sense.

GridTake - The real issue is not whether Ohio should want more firm power. It’s whether monopoly utilities should be the vehicle for building it. Those are very different questions, and states too often answer only the first.

Ofgem granted Tesla an electricity supply licence, allowing it to sell power to homes and businesses across Great Britain. The move gives Tesla a foothold to expand beyond EVs and batteries into a broader retail electricity model, similar to what it already does in Texas through Tesla Electric.

Tesla cannot offer dual-fuel service, but the licence gives it a direct path into the customer relationship as distributed energy, EV charging, and virtual power plant services continue to converge.

Why it matters - For the grid: retail electricity is becoming a platform for bundling devices, storage, charging, and software, not just commodity power sales.

For markets: the companies that make the hardware increasingly want to control the customer interface too.

GridTake - Tesla is betting that the future power business lives closer to the meter than the turbine. That won’t replace utilities, but it could steadily erode how much of the customer relationship they still control.

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