FERC is inching toward a federal framework for data center interconnection. MISO is projecting a 35% peak load jump by 2035, with data centers driving much of the increase. Maryland is trying to turn flexible load into real grid capacity. And a new paper from the American Capacity Project makes the deeper case that the country’s energy problems are no longer mainly technical. They are institutional, cultural, and self-reinforcing.

FERC is preparing a June decision on how large loads, particularly data centers, connect to the grid, stepping into what has historically been a state-led domain.

At the center is DOE’s push for a standardized framework that could accelerate interconnection timelines and potentially reshape cost allocation. The proposal contemplates whether hyperscalers should bear 100% of upgrade costs tied to their projects, a sharp departure from the traditional “socialized grid” model.

The Commission is clearly aware of the stakes. Chair Laura Swett emphasized the need for a “legally durable” approach while also signaling willingness to push jurisdictional boundaries.

At the same time, states are pushing back. Regulators argue they are better positioned to manage interconnection, pointing to emerging tools like large-load tariffs, long-term contract requirements, and collateral structures that screen speculative demand.

The backdrop is increasingly political. Data centers are no longer just an economic development story. They are showing up in rate cases, local elections, and cost debates across PJM and the Southeast.

GridTake
This is not just a technical rulemaking. It is a jurisdictional test. If FERC leans too far into centralization, it risks slowing the very buildout it is trying to accelerate. States have been moving quickly with contract structures that force discipline on large loads. A federal overlay could standardize the process, but it could also flatten the experimentation that is currently sorting real demand from speculative demand. The more interesting path is not full preemption, but selective pressure. Set guardrails, let markets and states do the sorting, and step in only where the system breaks.

MISO now expects peak demand to rise from 121 GW to roughly 163 GW by 2035, a 35% increase driven largely by data centers.

The near-term signal is just as important. The operator expects 8–14 GW of data centers to come online in 2026–2027, which will serve as the first real test of how quickly projected demand materializes. Under its mid-case scenario:

But the caveats are doing real work here. MISO explicitly flagged:

Utilities are already responding by tightening interconnection requirements. Larger deposits, longer commitments, and stricter contracts are being used to separate real projects from speculative queue entries.

GridTake
This is the first honest load forecast cycle in a long time. The numbers are big, but the uncertainty is bigger. If even half of the 8–14 GW expected in the next two years actually lands on schedule, planning assumptions across the Midwest will harden quickly. If it slips, the industry risks overbuilding toward a demand curve that never fully materializes.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright faced a familiar set of tensions on Capitol Hill: reliability versus cost, speed versus process.

On coal, Wright defended DOE’s use of emergency authorities to keep plants online, arguing they are necessary to prevent reliability risks. Lawmakers pushed back, citing rising costs being passed to ratepayers. On permitting, there was a clearer opening. Wright signaled willingness to work with Congress on:

At the same time, DOE’s budget direction is shifting capital toward “firm” generation, including gas, nuclear, hydro, and geothermal, while cutting back on portions of prior loan programs.

GridTake
The politics are catching up to the physics. Reliability arguments are winning in the short term, but they are being financed in ways that are hard to defend over time. The more interesting signal is the permitting conversation. If transmission and pipelines start moving on comparable timelines, it changes the entire supply curve. Until then, emergency orders and stopgap measures will keep filling gaps that are fundamentally structural.

Maryland utilities are moving forward with plans to aggregate up to 440 MW of flexible load through virtual power plant programs, EVs, batteries, and demand response. Breakdown of proposed capacity:

The goal is to reduce peak demand and delay infrastructure expansion, particularly as transmission buildout lags. Regulators are cautiously supportive but flagged a key issue:
flexibility only matters if it is dispatchable, measurable, and locationally relevant.

That last piece is the hard part. Shifting load in the wrong place does nothing for constrained parts of the grid.

GridTake
Flexible load is moving from theory to procurement, but it is still being treated like capacity when it behaves more like probability. A megawatt of dispatchable generation and a megawatt of voluntary demand response are not equivalent, and the system knows it.

A new white paper from the American Capacity Project argues that the current grid crunch is not just an infrastructure problem. It is a cultural and institutional one.

The paper contrasts two very different American energy systems. In the postwar era, rising electricity demand triggered a rapid supply response. Capacity was built ahead of need. Growth was treated as a directive. In the modern era, that reflex has inverted. Demand now triggers anxiety, delay, and procedural drag. Instead of building through pressure, the system manages around it.

The paper’s most useful framing is its side-by-side comparison of those eras. In the early postwar decades, firm capacity growth roughly tracked or exceeded demand growth. In the modern period, demand has resumed climbing, but firm dispatchable capacity has barely responded. The result is not just tighter markets. It is a different governing philosophy.

That philosophy produces what the paper calls the “Scarcity Trap”:

GridTake
This is what makes the paper valuable. Not the diagnosis that projects take too long, everyone in this space knows that, but the claim that delay has become self-justifying. Once a system gets used to scarcity, it starts treating growth itself as the problem. That is how a rich country with abundant fuel, capital, land, and engineering talent ends up talking like energy shortage is a permanent condition instead of a policy choice.

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