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

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What's Happening in Energy — Sept 11
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Exceptions Filed // Oncor // LCRA // Public Utility Commission of Texas

Back in March, Oncor and the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) requested to amend their Certificates of Convenience and Necessity (CCNs) to construct the Bell County East Switch to Big Hill substation 765-kV transmission line project. In August, the assigned Administrative Law Judges issued a Proposal for Decision (PFD) to deny the request. Last week, the joint utilities filed exceptions to the PFD. The project, also called “Import Path 2”, is part of the broader Permian Basin Reliability Plan (PBRP). The joint applicants picked apart the two main arguments of the PFD: 1) that the applicants failed to demonstrate need for the project; and 2) that the applicants failed to give proper notice to affected landowners. Read Halcyon’s summary of the joint applicants’ response.

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Grid Update // Large Load Fluctuations // ERCOT

ERCOT’s Interconnection and Grid Analysis Update included a slide on its efforts to create rules that would mitigate the grid impacts of large computational load fluctuations. The slide emphasized the real physical impacts of these fluctuations with the visual below. The rule ERCOT is pushing would limit power fluctuations to 10 MW per 5 seconds.

Check out the overview of the current generation queue in ERCOT, also included in the update. More than 20 GW of gas is expected to come online in 2030.

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Large Load Operational Requirements // ERCOT

In another operational report submitted ahead of its Board of Directors meeting, ERCOT compares the combined approved capacity of large load projects in two key regions against the 3,200MW “load loss limit” that could impact grid stability. Current consumption levels are below this limit; however, based on ERCOT’s quarterly stability assessment, future interconnected large loads could exceed this threshold.

“ERCOT will implement constraints for these groups as the actual consumption approaches the limit. Concurrently, ERCOT is coordinating with TSPs and QSEs [Transmission Service Providers and Qualified Scheduling Entities] to develop mitigation plans for managing these constraints…”

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Vistra’s Take on Interim Resource Adequacy Service // PJM // FERC

Vistra opposed PJM’s Interim Resource Adequacy Service (IRAS) proposal before the FERC on multiple grounds:

1. it targets non-jurisdictional retail customers;

2. it discriminates against customers that contract with existing generation;

3. it unjustly charges large loads that do not bring their own new capacity in the capacity market even after removing them from the key Variable Resource Requirement input parameter for the auction.

Here is an excerpt from the comment arguing that relying on states to implement curtailment does not make IRAS legally permissible.

“In trying to defend IRAS as jurisdictionally permissible, PJM hangs its hat on the fact that ‘exclusive jurisdiction’ rests with the states to ensure that the appropriate retail customers, i.e., New Large Loads, including data centers—and not residential customers or small industrial customers—are reduced when system conditions call for PJM to require load reductions,” but the fact that PJM is not the party that physically “flips the switch” to curtail specific retail loads does not save IRAS. Creating the conditions by which a state must take the final step of curtailing retail customers that PJM has already singled out for curtailment does not retroactively cure the jurisdictional defects inherent in IRAS (emphasis ours).”

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A “Public Summary” of a Large Load Contract // OpenAI // Georgia

It is not often that a utility shares a concise explainer of its large load contracts. Georgia Power filed a “public summary” of its 25-year Contract for Electric Service (CES) to serve OpenAI’s 3,210 MW data center in Effingham County. The straightforward five-page document increases transparency around the terms of the agreement, while keeping operational details and numbers mostly confidential. Key terms explained include:

• The customer must reduce demand by 1,000 MW when called upon by Georgia Power. Georgia Power has the right to curtail the demand if the customer fails to do so.
• The customer must always pay a minimum bill regardless of how much power they consume.
• The customer must post “replacement security” if a security provider’s creditworthiness falls below a specified level.

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Mega PV + BESS Project // American Battery Technology Company // Nevada

The American Battery Technology Company (ATBC) notified the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada that it has requested federal approval to construct a 1 GW PV + 4,752 MWh battery energy storage facility entirely behind the meter “to support the Tonopah Flats Lithium Project in Esmeralda County”. The project will serve ATBC's Tonopah Flats Lithium Project in Esmeralda County, a lithium mine and refinery expected to come online in the early 2030s with a peak load of 200 MW. The screenshot below shows just the PV + BESS portion of the project. We added a circle around the “Heli Pad” label for scale.

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Entergy’s “Retained Generators” // Project Evest // Meta // Louisiana

Entergy’s VP of Business Operations and Strategy filed Rebuttal Testimony explaining the Company’s position on how it would use the gas plants proposed to serve Meta’s Project Evest if the Electric Service Agreement (ESA) expires. These “Proposed Generators” include seven 754 MW combined-cycle combustion turbines, totaling 5,278 MW of capacity, expected to come online between 2030 and 2031. The VP explained that the utility could request a “Retained Generator” designation from the Commission based on the conditions at the time the customer decides not to renew the ESA.

“If the answer to that inquiry is yes–and thus retention of a generator is determined to be in the public interest and therefore beneficial to ELL’s existing customers–there is no basis for suggesting that ELL should be foreclosed from seeking appropriate cost recovery (and, indeed, foreclosing cost-recovery could have the perverse effect of discouraging ELL from seeking to retain generators that might otherwise benefit its customers).”

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New Large Load Tariff // Detailed Collateral Requirements // Alliant // Wisconsin

Alliant Energy filed an exhibit detailing the terms of its Large Load Power Service tariff with the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin. The tariff includes a table of the ratios of liquid vs. non-liquid credit support customers would need to provide to satisfy the Exit Fee component of the “Required Security Amount.”

“The ratios depend on a mix of the customer’s lowest credit rating from S&P, Fitch, or Moody’s or a "Financial Strength Test based on their net worth and liquidity. If a customer does not meet the requirements for minimum credit rating or from the Financial Strength Test, then they would need to provide 100% of the exit fee in liquid collateral."

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Concise Transmission Planning Update // MISO

MISO published this concise update on its 2026 Transmission Expansion Plan (MTEP26). We bolded the numbers that caught our eye.

“MTEP26 is on track to be a noteworthy year, with rising load demands and reliability priorities driving the work. MISO noted that work on MTEP26 Expedited Project Review (EPR) projects has already begun with 20.3GW already approved and an additional 32.6GW proposed — resulting in three times more EPRs than last year. The preliminary report contains 562 projects with 33GW of Large Load additions and 119 expedited projects and nearly 2,500 line miles. While spread across the four regions, the West has the most number of projects at 231, while the Central has 165, the South has 103, and the East has 63. The final subregional meetings will occur in early September, followed by a final review by the PAC and a Sector vote to recommend the portfolio to the Board.”

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Charges of Excess Capacity // Alphabet // NIPSCO // GenCo

The NIPSCO Industrial Group replied in support of its Petition for Reconsideration of the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission’s approval of NIPSCO’s special contract with a 300 MW data center owned by Midnight Sun Ventures, an Alphabet subsidiary. The group argues that the Commission should bar GenCo — NIPSCO’s generation affiliate that will enter into a PPA with NIPSCO to serve the data center — from keeping the proceeds of selling capacity in excess of what the data center needs. Instead, they argue that GenCo should return these proceeds through a reduced PPA rate.

“NIPSCO and GenCo admit the proposal for GenCo to retain the proceeds from excess capacity sales is unlike the regulatory treatment of capacity sales by NIPSCO and unlike the handling of GenCo sales under the previously approved Amazon contract…If GenCo is allowed to stockpile capacity, not to serve current customers but to gain a competitive edge when seeking future data center customers, then other Indiana utilities will be under competitive pressure to do the same, to avoid falling behind GenCo’s speed-to-market advantage. If the Commission acquiesces in GenCo’s forward-looking marketing plan, it will be difficult to deny other Indiana utilities the same flexibility. The result will be a race to amass surplus capacity, on a data center scale, without committed load to support it.”

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New Docket of the Week

• New Asset Condition Reviewer Role // ISO-NE // FERC
  
  Multiple parties, including the New England States Committee on Electricity, the Environmental Defense Fund, state consumer advocates, and others, commented in support of ISO-NE’s proposed tariff changes to become the “Asset Condition Reviewer” in New England. The consensus comes after a three-year stakeholder process that scrutinized the spiking costs of Asset Condition projects built by New England utilities. Track the two dockets in Halcyon: ER26-3533-000 and ER26-3534-000

Excerpt(s) of the Week

• Subsea Data Centers // FERC
  
  The FERC has two dockets open to consider applications to develop subsea data centers powered by “behind-the-meter” hydrokinetic turbines in Cook Inlet near Nikiski in Alaska and in the Western Passage near Eastport, Maine. One commenter, Donald J. Powers weighed in on both dockets. Here’s an excerpt from his comment on the proposed project in Maine.
  
  “Before rubber-stamping a proposal to drop high-density silicon processor clusters into a high-energy marine passage under the magical marketing banner of "free cooling," let’s look at the actual laws of thermodynamics—specifically, the conservation of energy and thermal boundary layer mechanics. If you're going to build a high-power tech installation, basic physics dictates you need an actual containment plan instead of just dumping raw heat into a public fish hatchery and calling it innovation.”
  
  And here’s his comment on the Alaska project.
  

Most clicked item from last week’s WHiE

• PNM’s Integrated Resource Plan for 2026-2045

• City of El Paso RFI to El Paso Electric for details related to Meta’s Wurldwide data center