'How do you know what's real?': US utilities are making AI data centers prove they exist before handing over power connections — as 50% of planned buildouts are currently being delayed, stalled, or canceled
- US data center developers have requested 1,066GW of grid connections, but Wood Mackenzie expects utilities to commit to only about 28%
- Utilities are demanding collateral, longer contracts, and study fees; Exelon's high-probability load fell from a whopping 18GW to 11GW once it insisted on the former
- Because grid costs are shared, phantom demand risks landing on household bills, and nobody knows how much of it is real yet
US utilities and grid operators are now demanding higher rates, longer contracts, collateral, and steep engineering study fees from data center developers, in an attempt to weed out what the industry calls "phantom" data centers.
Reporting from The Wall Street Journal claims the reasoning is straightforward: Grid costs are shared, so if a utility builds substations and transmission lines for a project that never shows up, everyone else on the network ends up helping to pay for them.
The numbers back up...
Copyright of this story solely belongs to www.techradar.com. To see the full text click HERE
