What's Happening in Energy highlights the most interesting findings from public utility commission filings.

• In Illinois, two Transmission Security Agreements (TSAs) with Commonwealth Edison (ComEd): 1) Digital Golf Road, an affiliate of Digital Realty, Inc., for a proposed data center in Mount Prospect and 2) Karis Critical, LLC, a developer of cold storage and data centers, for a proposed data center in Hoffman Estates. Both plan to take service under ComEd’s electric retail service tariff, which requires large loads to establish TSAs with ComEd. ComEd will recover transmission costs through its formula rates established in Attachment H-13 of the PJM tariff. The utility argues that TSAs meet the public interest standard of review through the Mobile-Sierra doctrine.
  

What's Happening in Energy — May 29
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In ERCOT, the Summer 2026 outlook forecasts a record peak demand of 92,211 megawatts. This record forecast results from a combination of hot weather and added loads since last summer:

1. Crypto Load growth since Sept 2025: 466 MW
2. Expected Large Load Growth May 2026 – Sept 2026: ~1,725 MW

Here are the historical peaks. The forecast is almost 7 GW above the current record. Forgive the ERCOT chart crime; despite starting the y-axis at 60,000 megawatts, the numbers are still good.

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Also in ERCOT, the quarterly stability assessment for generation and load expected to energize in Q4 2026 includes 4 gigawatts each of new generation and large loads (presentation). The generation includes wind, solar, and battery storage. Here is a map of generation and load additions by weather zone across ERCOT.

The presentation also included a picture of the 459 MW Pin Oak Peaking Energy Center 1 and 2 in Freestone County. These units are the first Texas Energy Fund projects to receive approval for commercial operation. WHiE readers might also recognize that the owner, Freestone Power Generation (Calpine/Constellation), is the counterparty to the net-metering arrangement with data center developer C1. These Pin Oak peaker units are adjacent to the existing 1,099 MW combined cycle facility subject to the net-metering arrangement (which was approved by the PUCT earlier this month). Here is the Pin Oak plant photo from ERCOT’s presentation.

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In Oklahoma, Oklahoma Gas & Electric filed an objection declining to respond to the Public Utility Division’s (PUD) data requests for “all communications and negotiation records” between the utility and Google (OG&E objection). OG&E is negotiating three Electric Service Agreements (ESAs) with Google’s subsidiary Alliance Site & Grid, and two Capacity Purchase Agreements (CPAs) with Google. OG&E argued that the Commission only needs to review the final executed agreements and that disclosing the intermediate “bargaining information” amounts to a “classic overbroad ‘fishing expedition’.” The utility also argued that granting such disclosure would have a chilling effect on future negotiations:

Forcing a regulated utility to turn over the highly sensitive, competitive, and proprietary negotiation strategies of a major global technology firm—simply because they chose to bring a monumental economic development project to Oklahoma—sends a highly damaging signal to future large load prospects currently evaluating the State’s regulatory and business climate.

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Still in Oklahoma and still with OG&E – this time over a concern about editorializing customer billing! OG&E is asking the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to reconsider and modify its Final Order and strike a specific, non-neutral, and politically charged line-item from customer bills (see the green box below). The Final Order conditionally approved projects and authorized the recovery of Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) financing, despite the Commission's opposition, noting that “it authorized the relief solely because such recovery is mandated by SB 998.”

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In Pennsylvania, Transource PA applied to site a 230 kV transmission line that would interconnect its proposed Rice Substation in Pennsylvania with the Ringgold Substation in Maryland (application). The entire project is called the 9A West Project. Transource PA is a subsidiary of Transource Energy, a partnership between American Electric Power (AEP) and Evergy. Testimony from a transmission planning engineer at AEP argues that this line will mitigate “backfeeding” — when power flows backwards from low voltage to high voltage lines — in the region. In the map below, the thick arrow from Bedington to Ringgold indicates that power flows are overloading the 138 kV lines.

According to the testimony, the proposed 230 kV line interconnecting the Rice to Ringgold substations would reduce these excessive power flows. Compare the diagram below, where the broad Bedington-to-Ringgold arrow has slimmed down from high-voltage to low-voltage lines.

Transource also filed a motion requesting the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission consolidate the dockets associated with this project for the substation and 230 kV line (motion).

Halcyon angle: This asset is the merest sliver of the substation activity in PJM. Halcyon’s latest release of its New Substation Development Tracker includes 1,659 projects in PJM. Learn more here.

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In Illinois, Staff from the Commerce Commission proposed that the Commission deny a petition by a long list of parties to close the Future of Gas (FOG) proceeding (Staff’s Proposed Order). The Staff argued that the Commission should request a rehearing of the original docket instead of filing a petition. They also said that because the FOG proceeding is “basically an exercise in information gathering and consideration of possible policy choice…the Commission has the authority to conduct the FOG Proceeding.”

The petitioners argued that Illinois’ risk of a resource adequacy shortfall identified in a recent study implies that the assumptions underlying the FOG proceedings are outdated, and thus that the Commission should suspend the FOG proceeding. Check out the long list of petitioners — a who’s who of Illinois industry (plus the American Petroleum Institute).

Halcyon angle: If you are interested in following FOG discussions, sign up for FOG alert or check out other alerts in the Halcyon curated alert library.

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In Michigan, Consumers Energy submitted a semi-annual report on its “estimating” practices to the Public Service Commission. The utility estimates electric bills for customers whose meters it can’t read. As of April 30, 2026, 253 customers have been receiving estimated bills — 17 for more than 12 consecutive months.

The report included a table of the reasons why the meters are inaccessible. Non-communicating meters come in first. Dogs come in a distant but formidable fourth place.

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In Wisconsin, Invenergy subsidiary Red Oak Ridge LLC applied for approval of its Generator Interconnection Agreement (application). This 1,186 MW simple cycle gas plant is one of the first projects to go through the MISO Expedited Resource Addition Study (ERAS) process, which began accepting applications in August 2025. Per Red Oak,

“This is a targeted, temporary process designed to issue a GIA in a 90-day timeframe in order to enable new generation resources critical to address the region’s resource adequacy and reliability to come online quickly. GIAs that result from the ERAS process, including the E0012 GIA, conform to MISO’s FERC-approved pro forma GIA.”

Red Oak also has a pending application for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) to construct the facility, and Wisconsin Electric Power (WEPCO) initiated a proceeding to acquire ownership of the project. The American Transmission Company will construct interconnection and network upgrades estimated to cost $79,419,835.

Halcyon angle: Halcyon has the toolset to track a project such as this, which exists across multiple dockets. In this case, Red Oak has three dockets before the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin: 9837-CE-100, 6630-BS-104, and 5-AE-279. From the platform, simply click Alerts from the hamburger menu in the top right, + Create Alert in the bottom left, filter to the Wisconsin PSC and the three dockets listed above, set an alert frequency, and enter a query. For example, “Summarize 5 key updates on the Red Oak Ridge Energy Center.” And voilà!

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In Minnesota, Otter Tail Power filed a petition for approval to create a new class for very large customers (those greater than 25 MW) with two new rate schedules (petition).

• Large General Service – Tier II (between 25 MW and less than 75 MW)

• Large General Service – Tier III – High Power Compute (greater than 75 MW)

To be more specific: Large General Service - Tier III is actually a “High Power Compute” schedule targeted to data centers. According to Otter Tail’s “data center philosophy:”

“We designed the proposed Large General Services – Tier III – High Power Compute rate schedule (HPC Rate) to provide competitively priced, reliable energy to potential new data center load, while protecting our customers and our business from the risks inherent to serving data center load.”

Here’s a table of the new rate schedules sandwiched (somewhat unhelpfully) between existing tariffs.

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In Washington, DC, an answer to the question — do you know which states have some form of a resilience framework in place? Rhizome, a climate risk planning platform for utilities, has answered this question (CA, CT, FL, IL, ME, MI, NV, NY, TX) in its upcoming June 2nd presentation for the 4th Integrated Distribution System Planning Working Group session.

For background, last month's 3rd working group session meeting minutes and slides from Energy Shrink and E3 are also available. This work is part of the DC Public Service Commission’s investigation into Integrated Distribution System Planning for electric utilities.

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Halcyon Team Query of the Week

• In Virginia, the transcript from Dominion’s Virtual Power Plant (VPP) Program hearing on May 18th includes testimony from a former FERC Chairman Chatterjee and others on contested issues around program design and data inputs. Chairman Chatterjee on behalf of Palmetto, a clean tech VPP energy company, testified, “We encourage the Commission to require Dominion to publish monthly … submitted applications, approved enrollments, remaining capacity, and budget utilization for those programs. Why … Because … all make investment decisions based on whether these programs appear stable and available.”

New Docket of the Week

• In Texas, 279.9 MW of storage from Arroyo and Bexar ProjectCos — with 25.7 MW of battery storage each for Arroyo and 25 MW each for Bexar.
  

  • Arroyo ProjectCo 1, LLC (59796)

  • Arroyo ProjectCo 2, LLC (59797)

  • Arroyo ProjectCo 3, LLC (59798)

  • Arroyo ProjectCo 4, LLC (59799)

  • Arroyo ProjectCo 5, LLC (59800)

  • Arroyo ProjectCo 6, LLC (59801)

  • Arroyo ProjectCo 7, LLC (59803)

  • Bexar ProjectCo 1, LLC (59804)

  • Bexar ProjectCo 2, LLC (59805)

  • Bexar ProjectCo 3, LLC (59806)

  • Bexar ProjectCo 4, LLC (59807)

Public Comment Excerpt(s) of the Week

• One needn’t look too hard to find public comments on data centers and the energy infrastructure buildout. In Wisconsin, the docket for a CPCN to construct the Red Oak Ridge Energy Center contains dozens of public comments capturing these tensions. Here is an excerpt from one (comment).
  
  “The Town of Paris is governed by a three-person board. This is a small rural community attempting to manage repeated large-scale industrial energy proposals. Residents are exhausted and feel they are losing control over the future of their town…At what point does this become excessive concentration of energy infrastructure in one small community? Paris should not become a regional power wasteland for the Microsoft data centers in Mount Pleasant. Paris Board did not approve them. Many residents, including myself, no longer feel confident about remaining in this area if this project is approved.”
  

Most clicked item from last week’s WHiE

• ERCOT 5/19-5/20 presentation on batch study process for the Technical Advisory Committee.
• MISO presentation on draft tariff language for the Zero-Injection Generator Interconnection Agreement (ZGIA).