This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe
State legislatures are writing data center rules faster than they can verify the demand forecasts underneath them. Fifteen states accounted for 80 percent of data center electricity demand in 2023, a single hyperscale campus can arrive as 15 to 20 percent of a utility's demand, and the transmission to serve it takes five to 15 years to build. On this episode of Volts, David Roberts works through Climate Cabinet's Taming Data Center Turmoil series with Saleem Chapman, who leads the group's electricity affordability policy work, on why Georgia's regulated utility, PJM's capacity market, and ERCOT's competitive market each left ratepayers holding the risk, and what a state can require before it approves a project, while the facility operates, and after the deal is done.
Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction
02:49 – How Climate Cabinet came to the data center fight
03:58 – Three things that make hyperscalers unlike past industrial loads
07:51 – Warning signals: forecast opacity, gas dependency, unconditional subsidies
13:44 – Siting near overburdened communities and the Memphis case
15:34 – State preemption versus local control
18:31 – The same failure pattern in Georgia, PJM, and ERCOT
23:52 – Why not just ban data centers outright
28:07 – The framework, and what to require before approval
34:54 – While operating: real cost pricing and on-call load flexibility
37:39 – Scenario-based planning and the utility incentive problem
39:37 – After the deal: new and matched clean energy
43:48 – Siting standards and performance-tied incentives
50:27 – Existing facilities and the threat to build elsewhere
55:41 – Which states are ahead, and step one for lawmakers
