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It is the last week of summer in the U.S., a fact that becomes immediately evident to anyone who just received a week’s worth of out-of-office automated replies. Halcyon has been hard at work, but in the spirit of summer season ending, we have put together a brief reading list for these final days of August. 

Consider this as back-to-school prep: a proper and useful reboot that sets the stage for an autumn of deeper inquiry, and a set of ideas more durable than newsflow. These three shifts and data sets tell us much more than just the numbers that comprise them.

Data centers (naturally)

Earlier this month, Meta Platforms secured $29 billion in financing for its data center complex currently under development in Louisiana. Regular Halcyon readers and customers will be very familiar with this project, including its associated gas and power infrastructure, as well as the seemingly endless flow of documentation in Louisiana Public Service Commission Docket U-37425 (free Halcyon login is required).

Yes, it’s big. However, more important than the fact that a complex of three generators, a new 500kV transmission line, and substation upgrades will run into the billions for just one data center is the fact that demand is widespread everywhere.  

As a back-to-school reminder, the intention to build is everywhere, and so too is the same attention to policy, regulation, generation, transmission, and reliability. In a recent filing, Consumers Energy in Michigan detailed all 54 of the data center loads seeking interconnection in its service territory. The smallest is all of four megawatts; the largest, 2,200 megawatts. In total, more than 22 gigawatts of potential load is waiting in Michigan’s data center wings. 

Standard caveats that interconnection requests are not confirmed actual demand, and many of these requests are duplicates, and so on. But really, there is a significant opportunity at stake here. The difference between 10% and 50% of this demand materializing in Michigan could fundamentally transform the state’s power system. 

Base residuals

Last month, the PJM Interconnection held its annual base residual auction, a process through which the largest U.S. grid by load secures capacity for the coming year. Over 134 gigawatts of capacity were successfully auctioned, with the maximum price mandated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), of almost $330 per megawatt per day. This auction resulted in a total value of $16 billion, marking a record for PJM, and an increase of $1.4 billion compared to the year prior. 

These auction results indicate that power supply is tight, and that generators, as they look ahead into the next year of planning and operations, do not expect that supply to significantly increase — or at least, raise enough to lower their price expectations (the so-called ‘resource clearing price’) back down to the already-elevated levels of 2024-25.  

There is a great deal happening beneath this figure. Demand for energy is expected to grow at the fastest rate in decades, with new, highly concentrated sources of demand emerging (data centers, again). However, building new generation is not a quick process. Renewable generation capacity is currently facing extremely long and complex interconnection queues, and new gas-fired power generation is both scarce and expensive. 

Gas, always gas

Halcyon began shipping our Gas Power Plant Tracker (GPPT) in June. As part of this process, we promise to update it every month. Earlier this month customers received the third update. GPPT now tracks 146 individual gas-fired power assets under development or construction in the US, totaling 72 gigawatts of generating capacity. 

Here are those 146 plants, mapped by known capacity, allowing you to see what’s new. One of our favorite plants is the JBS Green data center power plant in North Carolina, which is powered by one of the state’s abundant natural resources: swine waste. 

We have many exciting updates coming related to U.S. gas-fired power, including research collaborations, cost figures, and a comprehensive list of enhancements and additional data fields requested by our customers (keep those requests coming!) 

You can read more about the gas power plant tracker and our large load tracker in Vectors and Vectors. 

And with that, a fateful eight reads to close out the summer: 

1. Measuring the environmental impact of delivering AI at Google scale

2. Duke University research on seeing hyperscale data centers as "active agents in the energy transition and water management"

3. Goldman Sachs on smart energy demand management 

4. Carlyle Group’s sequel to The New Joule Order is The New Martial Plan

5. Ember’s research on solar’s take-off in Africa
   (full disclosure: I am a member of Ember’s advisory board)

6. Lauri Myllivyrta, writing for Carbon Brief, on China’s emissions plateau (for now)

7. Liam Denning on the consumer impact of rising electricity prices 

8. David Fickling on how the whole world is switching to EVs faster than you

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