Two procedural patterns that materially change how to read the local-moratorium tape and the PJM NCBL timeline. (1) Pennsylvania's 180-day moratorium-by-MPC-invocation: the state Municipalities Planning Code has provisions that allow any municipality to administratively pause consideration of any application that requires a zoning ordinance amendment, for up to 180 days, while the governing body deliberates on the amendment. The procedural test is simply 'does the existing zoning ordinance explicitly contemplate this use,' and because data centers postdate most rural PA zoning ordinances, almost no PA municipality has explicit data-center wording in its code — which means every PA municipality has the 180-day pause available by default. The morning-times.com piece ('Municipalities back 180-day data center moratoriums to create rules in peace') is the first general-press piece naming the pattern; per the article, multiple Lehigh Valley, Susquehanna Valley, and southwestern PA townships have invoked the 180-day pause in the past 60 days, none of which appear in conventional moratorium trackers (Good Jobs First, DCD, Datacenter Knowledge) because they aren't formal moratorium ordinances. (2) PJM NCBL timeline: the May 6 paper covered Monday establishes the procedural posture, but the underlying timeline is dated to PJM's annual Base Residual Auction (BRA) cycle. The BRA is the once-a-year auction PJM uses to procure capacity (generation that promises to be available during peak demand) three years out from delivery. The 2028/29 BRA runs in June 2026, which is the target effectiveness date for NCBL. Working backward from that: NCBL needs to be in PJM's tariff before the auction-clearing in June 2026, which means FERC needs to approve it by approximately May 2026; FERC's standard review window for a tariff filing is 60-90 days, which means PJM needed to file with FERC in February-March 2026; PJM missed that filing window (the Board's original December 2025 target has slipped twice), and the May 6 paper's 'later in 2026' language now suggests filing in Q3 2026, which means NCBL will not be effective for the 2028/29 BRA and the soonest possible effectiveness is the 2029/30 BRA (auction June 2027 for delivery year June 2029). The implication: hyperscalers planning interconnections in PJM with target in-service dates in 2028 will not see NCBL in their initial tariff treatment, but those targeting 2029 in-service will. This is a meaningful planning-window shift from what the May 6 press coverage suggested. Sources: Morning-Times (Sayre, PA), 'Municipalities back 180-day data center moratoriums to create rules in peace' (May 12); PA Municipalities Planning Code (53 P.S.); Modo Energy NCBL analysis; PJM Inside Lines May 6; Independent Market Monitor for PJM filing in Docket RM26-4, November 25, 2025; RTO Insider 'PJM Revises Non-capacity Backed Load Proposal.'
Primary source · Morning-Times / Modo Energy / RTO Insider / PA MPC / Independent Market Monitor for PJM ↗
Why it matters
Two updates. (1) PA's MPC-180-day mechanism is procedurally different from a stand-alone moratorium ordinance and is being systematically underreported. Cliff's local-moratorium tracker (whatever its current form) should add a 'procedural-pause' tag distinct from 'formal moratorium' and start tracking PA municipalities that have invoked the MPC §609 pause. The plain-English explainer: in PA, if a small borough or township doesn't have 'data center' written into its zoning code (which almost none do because data centers postdate most rural PA zoning), the borough can administratively refuse to accept new data-center applications for up to 180 days while it considers writing data-center language into the code. No vote, no public hearing on a separate moratorium ordinance — the borough just refuses to docket the application and points to the MPC. This means PA's effective moratorium count is materially higher than the formal-ordinance count. For Cliff's site-readiness underwriting, every PA jurisdiction without explicit data-center zoning language should be flagged 'MPC-180-day-eligible,' which is essentially all of rural PA. The PPL Electric service territory (covering the Lehigh Valley, Susquehanna Valley, and northeast PA) compounds the MPC mechanism with the new 50 MW individual / 75 MW aggregate large-load rate class effective July 1, making PPL territory the highest-friction PA region for new hyperscale entitlement. (2) The PJM NCBL timeline slippage is material for any hyperscale site evaluation in PJM territory. The May 6 paper suggested NCBL would be in place 'in time for the 2028/29 BRA' but the procedural math (PJM needs to file with FERC by ~May 2026 for that effectiveness; PJM has not yet filed) means the realistic effectiveness date is the 2029/30 BRA. Hyperscalers planning sites with 2028 in-service dates will NOT see NCBL as part of their initial tariff treatment; sites targeting 2029 in-service likely will. For Cliff's BTM-generation product wedge: the NCBL Framework 2(c) 'Bring Your Own Generation' (BYOG) pathway is the most-favored hyperscaler option (avoids the curtailment risk of Framework 2(a) and the diesel-backup cost of Framework 2(b)), and the timing slip means BYOG-positioned sites are NOT yet on a faster regulatory track. The current planning hierarchy for a PJM hyperscale site in mid-2026 is therefore: (i) signed Energy Service Agreement (ESA) under current tariff = fastest path, (ii) NCBL-eligible site once filing happens = second-fastest path (but available only for 2029+ in-service), (iii) full BYOG with on-site gas plant = third-fastest path (but bypasses NCBL timing entirely if the BTM plant is sized to fully cover the load). Update strategy/competitive-landscape-and-adjacencies.md and the BTM SKU page (strategy/btm-generation-economics.md if it exists) to reflect the BRA-cycle dependency.
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