Good morning. The data-center fight is moving from zoning rooms to power bills, tax breaks and transmission routes. The buildout is still moving, but the grid is starting to send invoices.
Top Stories
FACTORIES FEEL DATA-CENTER POWER SHOCK
Reuters
The cost-shift story is no longer just residential: Reuters traces how AI load is pushing industrial power bills higher across parts of the Rust Belt.
TERAWULF SIGNS $19B ANTHROPIC CAMPUS DEAL
The Wall Street Journal
The lease turns a former crypto-power play into an AI infrastructure bet, with hundreds of megawatts of compute capacity promised by 2028.
VIRGINIA DATA CENTERS SAVE THE TAX BREAK
Bloomberg Tax
The industry accepted a temporary power tax, but preserved the larger sales-tax exemption that critics had turned into a statewide political target.
GOOGLE BACKS FUSION STARTUP
CNBC
Google's Proxima investment is another sign that hyperscalers are buying optionality across every power source that might keep AI campuses running.
CLEAN ENERGY TAKES THE HIT, KEEPS MOVING
Axios
One year after the GOP budget law, BloombergNEF's capacity forecast through 2035 is down 42%, but surging power demand is offsetting enough of the damage to keep parts of the buildout moving.
Power & Grid
OHIO BILL TILTS TOWARD GAS
Successful Farming
Ohio says it needs more generation, but the Senate's answer would make big wind and solar harder while giving natural gas an easier lane.
OFFSHORE WIND WAITS OUT WASHINGTON
Missouri Independent
Trump-era lease buyouts are shaking offshore wind, leaving states to hope developers stay close enough for projects to survive the policy swing.
FERC BLOCKS PJM GAS PLANT SHORTCUT
Utility Dive
The ruling keeps PJM's fast-track review from becoming a one-project escape hatch, even as the region hunts for capacity to meet load growth.
TEXAS PUTS $113M INTO GRID MONITORING
Utility Dive
Southwestern Public Service won state reliability money for drone inspections and live monitoring, the less glamorous work behind keeping poles and wires ready.
JUDGE BLOCKS PART OF NEBRASKA TRANSMISSION LINE
KNOP
A federal judge's injunction freezes work on the northern stretch of NPPD's 226-mile R-Project across the Sandhills, part of a 14-year fight, even as the utility starts building around the blocked section.
Data Centers
TENNESSEE HOMES SEE BILL PRESSURE
Nashville Banner
A new report turns the data-center cost question local, finding bigger residential electricity increases near Tennessee's server-farm buildout.
LOUDOUN TOWER FIGHT HITS SCHOOLS
WUSA9
Transmission towers proposed near Loudoun schools and homes have become the new flashpoint, pushing Northern Virginia's data-center fight from the campuses to the power lines that feed them.
UTAH SENATOR WANTS DATA-CENTER DISCLOSURE
Utah News Dispatch
After the Stratos blowup, Sen. John Curtis is looking for federal standards that make power, water and behind-the-meter claims easier to trust.
KANSAS LABOR PUTS CANDIDATES ON NOTICE
The Topeka Capital-Journal
The politics are getting sharper: labor leaders are warning candidates that skepticism toward data-center projects could carry electoral costs.
AI POWER BOTTLENECK MOVES TO THE GRID
TheStreet
The investment case is starting to sound like an interconnection case: deliverable power, transformers and transmission are becoming the scarce AI inputs.
Stat of the Day
90%
Electricity-cost increase reported by an Ohio brickmaker
The jump tracks data-center-driven power demand in the region, showing how AI load can hit industrial customers too.
Reuters ↗