By Maeve Allsup
Publication Date: 2025-12-05 16:55:00
Photo credit: Hryshchyshen Serhii / Shutterstock
Federal regulators, tasked with building a framework to allow data centers to connect to the grid more quickly, are grappling with the question of whether large loads that agree to be curtailed should get expedited access.
A new analysis published this week, sponsored by Google, offers a potential blueprint for a tariff structure that would do just that, its authors argue — while also neutralizing the risk of shifting costs to ratepayers.
The report, conducted by grid orchestration platform Camus Energy, transmission modeling firm Encoord, and Princeton University’s ZERO Lab, uses real transmission data from an anonymized utility in PJM to model hourly constraints at six hypothetical 500 megawatt data center sites.
While many early iterations of flexible interconnection…