20MW threshold convergence / NY S.10642 + AOC HR + Sanders S.4214 + FERC RM26-4-000 / forming model-bill consensus / sweeps in wholesale colo + hyperscaler leased capacity / not just marquee campuses

Plain-English version. Until June 24, the most common threshold for state and local data-center legislation was either 100 MW+ (hyperscale conventional definition, used by industry groups like AFCOM and Uptime Institute) or no threshold at all (county moratoriums typically apply to 'any new data center development,' regardless of size). The 20 MW number is structurally different — it sweeps in a much larger population of facilities: - A typical enterprise data center serving a Fortune-500 bank or insurance company is 5–15 MW. - A typical wholesale colocation building (Equinix, Digital Realty, CyrusOne) is 20–60 MW per building, or 100+ MW per campus. - A typical hyperscaler colo lease (AWS, Microsoft, Google, Meta in a wholesale provider) is 20–100 MW per building. - A typical hyperscaler owned campus (Project Kilby, Stargate, AWS Oregon) is 200 MW – 2.67 GW. At a 20 MW cutoff, the moratorium covers essentially the entire planned commercial pipeline — not just the marquee hyperscaler campuses but also the wholesale colo product that powers most enterprise IT. The choice of 20 MW is not random — it's the same number FERC used in its RM26-4-000 docket (the docket where FERC is considering uniform rules for large electrical loads, with action expected by end of June 2026). FERC's docket defines a 'large electrical load' as ≥20 MW. So: - FERC RM26-4-000 (federal, regulatory): 20 MW threshold. - NY S.10642 (state, statutory): 20 MW threshold. - Sanders S.4214 + AOC HR companion (federal, statutory): 20 MW threshold. Three separate actors, in different branches of government, with no public coordination, converging on the same numeric line within 30 days. That's not coincidence; it's the formation of a regulatory consensus around what 'hyperscale' means for the purposes of public-policy intervention. The number will probably stick. Watch for the next 5–10 state moratorium bills (the ones currently in queue per the Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting tracker, including bills in IL, MA, NJ, WA, OR) to either use 20 MW or to be measured against 20 MW as the reference threshold.

Primary source · Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — FACT SHEET: FERC Directs Nation's Largest Grid Operator to Create New Rules (Jun 18 2026) + cross-reference to NY S.10642 / AOC HR / Sanders S.4214 statutory text ↗