Plain-English background on why county moratoriums matter more than they look. A county moratorium is a temporary local ordinance that suspends new development permits or rezoning applications for a specific category of use (in this case, data centers) for a...
Wave3 Louisville — Clark County could consider moratorium on data center zoning (Jul 3 2026) + News and Tribune — Clark County officials considering data center moratorium + Post and Mail — Whitley County putting moratorium on data centers + City of Lakeland — Notice of Proposed Moratorium on Data Centers and Large Load Customers + LkldNow — City Releases Proposed Data Center Moratorium Ordinance + LkldNow — Lakeland Takes First Step Toward Data Center Moratorium + FOX 13 Tampa Bay — Lakeland moves forward with drafting 12-month moratorium on large-scale data centers + WUSF — Zephyrhills City Council puts a one-year moratorium on data centers (Jun 24 2026) ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOOhioMoratoriumInterconnection
Read why it matters →Plain-English background on why the four operational-track deadlines all matter this month. Each of these deadlines drives a specific action by developers, hyperscalers, or state parties, and each represents a concrete moment where Cliff can produce a...
ERCOT — Large Load Integration Page + PJM Inside Lines — PJM Capacity Auction for 2028/2029 Delivery Year Opens (Jun 30 2026) + PJM — 2028/2029 Base Residual Auction Documents (Jun 30 2026) + Utility Dive — Maryland lawmakers back data center transmission cost complaint at FERC + Utility Dive — FERC extends comment deadline on PJM data center transmission complaint + Greenberg Traurig — New York Legislature Passes Data Center Moratorium; Bill Awaits Governor's Approval + Harris Beach Murtha — New York State Legislature Passes First-in-the-Nation Data Center Moratorium ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOCAISOMoratoriumInterconnectionCapacity market
Read why it matters →Plain-English background on the operational track. Yesterday's newsletter covered the regulatory calendar (VA tax, IL DCIP freeze, FL SB 484, Trump EO 14318, PJM auction open, ERCOT Batch Zero deadlines, Abbott Texas memo). Today's operational read is about...
ERCOT — Large Load Integration Page + ERCOT Market Notice M-B062326-01 Implementation of the Batch Zero Process + ERCOT Trending Topic New Batch Connection Process for Large Electricity Users (Jun 18 2026 PDF) + EPE Consulting — New Pathway and Deadlines in ERCOT's Large Load Batch Zero PCLR + Willkie Farr & Gallagher — ERCOT Approves Implementing New Batch Zero Process for Large Load Interconnections + Foley & Lardner — ERCOT's Proposed Batch Zero Process What Developers of Large Loads Need to Know + Microsoft Source — Microsoft Completes Construction on First Datacenter Facility in Mount Pleasant Wisconsin (Jun 23 2026) + WEDC — Gov. Evers Microsoft Officials Announce New $4 Billion Investment in Mount Pleasant Datacenter ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOTexasMoratoriumInterconnectionHyperscaler
Read why it matters →Plain-English background. Four separate regulatory clocks all reach 12:01 AM Wednesday July 1, 2026 at the same instant. Three are state-level and point toward friction — they increase cost or reduce access for hyperscalers building in that state. One is...
Greenberg Traurig — Virginia Legislature Approves Tax on Data Center Electricity Consumption (Jun 2026) + Data Center Knowledge — Virginia Approves First-Ever Data Center Power Tax + Illinois Governor's Newsroom — Gov. Pritzker Pauses New Data Center Tax Incentives + Capitol News Illinois — Gov. JB Pritzker to Suspend Tax Breaks for Data Centers, Urging More Discussion + The Hill — Pritzker Pauses Data Center Tax Incentives in Illinois + MultiState — State Data Center Policy Shifts as Governors Impose New Restrictions (Jun 22 2026) + Whitehouse.gov — Executive Order 14318 Promoting Advanced Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Security (Jun 2026) + AI Governance Institute — EO 14318 Accelerating Federal Permitting Data Center Infrastructure 2026 + Henrico Citizen — Virginia Has a New Two-Year Budget. Here's What Lawmakers Now Require of Data Centers + Kiplinger — Virginia Approves First Data Center Power Tax ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOEPAMoratoriumTax incentiveInterconnection
Read why it matters →Plain-English background. A 'data center moratorium' is a county or city ordinance that pauses all new data center applications for a fixed period (commonly 6 or 12 months) so the local government can write zoning rules, set impact fees, or just decide...
Fox Carolina — Spartanburg County votes to pause data center applications for one year (Jun 22 2026) + KTIV — Woodbury County passes moratorium on data center projects (Jun 23 2026) + Iowa Public Radio + cityviewnc.com — Cumberland County Enacts 6-Month Data Center Moratorium (Jun 15 2026) + KCTV5 — Legislature advances ordinance extending Jackson County data center moratorium to 180 days (Jun 9 2026) + Engage LexingtonKY — Data Centers in Lexington (Jun 9 2026) + interconnectedcapital.com US Data Center Moratorium Tracker 2026 ↗
PJMMISOCAISOSPPMoratoriumInterconnection
Read why it matters →Plain-English background. Minnesota sits in MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator) — the same RTO that just received FERC's June 18 show-cause order on large-load tariff design. Minnesota's data center growth had been more measured than...
CBS Minnesota — Minneapolis City Council approves 5-month pause on data center development (Jun 25 2026) + Fox 9 — Inver Grove Heights City Council votes to pass data center moratorium despite developer threatening lawsuit (Jun 26 2026) + MPR News — Inver Grove Heights approves one-year moratorium on data centers + KSTP — Inver Grove Heights council pauses data centers amid lawsuit threat + Star Tribune + Bring Me The News + Audacy / WCCO Radio ↗
MISOFERCTexasColoradoMoratorium
Read why it matters →Plain-English version. Yesterday's edition framed July 10 as the ERCOT Batch Zero application deadline for large loads (≥75 MW). Today we have the actual scale number, which ERCOT's June 18 'Trending Topic: New Batch Connection Process for Large Electricity...
ERCOT — Trending Topic: New Batch Connection Process for Large Electricity Users (Jun 18 2026) + Texas Energy and Power — How Texas decides which data centers to connect (438,000 MW figure, ~90% data centers) + EPE Consulting — New Pathway and Deadlines in ERCOT's Batch Zero PCLR + Keentel Engineering Batch Zero Compliance & Large Load Guide + Zero Emission Grid — ERCOT Batch Zero Workshop 6 (June 11 2026 readiness summary) ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOSPPInterconnection
Read why it matters →Plain-English version. On June 18, 2026, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC, the federal regulator with jurisdiction over the interstate transmission grid) used Section 206 of the Federal Power Act to issue what are called 'show-cause orders'...
FERC — FERC Launches Aggressive Targeted Action to Speed Large Load Integration (Jun 18 2026) + Mondaq + Day Pitney summaries of the six Section 206 orders + Akin Gump abeyance analysis ↗
PJMMISOCAISOSPPMoratoriumInterconnectionBehind-the-meter
Read why it matters →Plain-English version of what happened. New York has a part-time state legislature that adjourns in mid-June; in the last 72 hours of the 2026 session, both the Senate and Assembly passed S.10642/A.11560, the 'Responsible Data Center Development Act,'...
NY State Senate / Sen. Kristen Gonzalez press release — Passes Data Center Moratorium, First in the Nation If Signed (Jun 23 2026) ↗
MISONYISOFERCWisconsinMoratoriumInterconnectionRatepayer protection
Read why it matters →Plain-English version of what happened. Tuesday, June 23 was the single most active moratorium day Florida has had — three county boards moved separate ordinances forward in a coordinated wave. Clay County (just south of Jacksonville, ~220,000 residents) gave...
Florida Politics — Three counties moving forward with one-year data center moratoriums (Jun 24 2026) ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOCAISOMoratoriumInterconnectionBehind-the-meter
Read why it matters →Plain-English version. Knox County is the eastern Tennessee county containing Knoxville (population ~480,000 in the metro). On June 23, the County Commission voted 10-0 — with Commissioner Courtney Durrett recusing because she works at Xfinity (a Comcast...
WATE 6 Knoxville — Knox County puts new data center projects on hold for 1 year (Jun 23 2026) ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOFERCMoratoriumHyperscaler
Read why it matters →Plain-English version of what Project Kilby is. Microsoft and Chevron jointly announced on June 22 that they are co-developing a roughly 2.67 gigawatt natural gas power plant in the Permian Basin near Pecos, Texas (about 200 miles east of El Paso), paired...
Chevron newsroom — Chevron signs 20-year power agreement with Microsoft for West Texas data center (Jun 22 2026) ↗
ERCOTMISOFERCTexasMoratoriumInterconnectionBehind-the-meter
Read why it matters →Plain-English version of the geography. North Carolina's data center backlash has concentrated in two adjacent regions: the Charlotte metro (Mecklenburg + Rowan) and the Research Triangle (Durham, Wake, Orange, Chatham). In roughly five weeks, at least nine...
WFAE (Charlotte's NPR) — Charlotte City Council approves 150-day data center moratorium ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOFERCMoratorium
Read why it matters →Plain-English version of what changed. Texas's electric grid is run by ERCOT under the oversight of the PUCT (Public Utility Commission of Texas). ERCOT writes its own operating rules, called 'protocols.' Protocol Revision Requests (PRRs) and Nodal Protocol...
ERCOT — PUCT approves Batch Zero process press release ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOCAISOInterconnection
Read why it matters →Plain-English version of the geographic pattern. The moratorium streak has been geographically dispersed — Iowa, Tennessee, California, Georgia, Nebraska, Utah, North Carolina, Indiana, Oklahoma, Nevada (the counter-signal), Wisconsin. Most states have had at...
WisBusiness / Dane County Board ↗
MISOFERCNorth CarolinaWisconsinMoratoriumHyperscaler
Read why it matters →The chronology. December 18, 2025, FERC issued a separate order (not yesterday's) directing PJM specifically to revise its tariff to provide clear rates, terms, and conditions for co-located load (a data center plus its own on-site generation, sitting at the...
Gibson Dunn — analysis of Dec 18, 2025 FERC order to PJM ↗
PJMMISOCAISOSPPInterconnectionBehind-the-meter
Read why it matters →La Crosse County sits in western Wisconsin along the Mississippi River. The Board of Supervisors is 28 members; two were absent, so 28 effective votes were cast and 26 of them were yes. That is a 93% margin among voting members.
The ordinance has two...
WXOW La Crosse ↗
MISOFERCWisconsinMoratorium
Read why it matters →Plain-English version of what FERC actually did. The expected path was a single final rule (or a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking) under Docket RM26-4-000 that would have set one national answer to 'who pays for the grid upgrades large data centers force.' FERC...
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — press release on June 18, 2026 action ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOCAISOInterconnectionRatepayer protection
Read why it matters →Plain-English version. Crusoe is a data center developer that originated in Bitcoin-flared-gas-to-compute and pivoted into AI-specific hyperscale campuses, most notably the Abilene Texas site that anchors a leg of the Stargate program. Meta is one of the four...
Data Center Dynamics — covering the original Bloomberg report ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOFERCMoratoriumInterconnectionBehind-the-meter
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. (Recap from yesterday for new context.) FERC committed in April to act by end of June on the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking covering large-load interconnection to the interstate transmission system. The substantive ruling could...
FERC / Holland & Knight / Power Magazine ↗
ERCOTMISONYISOFERCInterconnectionBehind-the-meterHyperscaler
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. Applied Digital (NASDAQ: APLD) is a midsize US data-center developer that focuses specifically on hyperscale 'AI factory' colocation — large-block, single-tenant, GPU-dense campuses on greenfield sites with dedicated power. The $5.2B /...
Tech Times / Applied Digital 8-K / Stock Titan ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOTexasMoratoriumHyperscaler
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. Most states do data-center tariff fights utility-by-utility — every utility files its own version, every commission re-litigates from scratch. Pennsylvania did the opposite: the PUC wrote one model and each utility has to file a tariff...
PA PUC / Utility Dive / National Law Review ↗
PJMMISONorth CarolinaWisconsinInterconnection
Read why it matters →Plain-English framing. FERC regulates the interstate transmission grid. Until now, interconnection rules for loads (as opposed to generators) have been overwhelmingly state-level — a developer interconnects through whichever state PUC and utility happens to...
FERC / Utility Dive / Snell & Wilmer / White & Case ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOCAISOInterconnectionBehind-the-meterHyperscaler
Read why it matters →Two parallel Texas tracks. (1) Batch Zero (PGRR145 + NPRR1325) is ERCOT's proposed replacement for the existing one-at-a-time Large Load Interconnection Study (LLIS) process — instead of studying each new large-load request individually, Batch Zero would...
Cliff repo / ERCOT PGRR145 + NPRR1325 / ZeroEmissionGrid / EPE Consulting / SK Energy / Perkins Coie / Mayer Brown / Greenberg Traurig / Baker Botts ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOFERCInterconnectionBehind-the-meter
Read why it matters →HB 1030 was Colorado's primary 2026 attempt to attract data-center investment via tax incentives — the bill was first introduced in January and modeled loosely on the sales-and-use exemption regimes that Texas, Virginia, Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska, and...
KUNC / CPR News / The Colorado Sun / The Durango Herald ↗
ERCOTPJMMISOTexasMoratoriumTax incentiveRatepayer protection
Read why it matters →Box Elder County commissioners voted unanimously to approve two resolutions in support of a 40,000-acre data center campus on an unincorporated site in northern Utah. The project, dubbed Stratos and developed by O'Leary Digital, would span 40,000 acres of...
Utah News Dispatch / KSL.com ↗
ERCOTPJMMISONorth CarolinaMoratoriumInterconnectionBehind-the-meter
Read why it matters →Two large hyperscaler footprint moves this past week. AWS: ~$15B planned investment in Northern Indiana for multiple data center campuses adding approximately 2.4 GW of capacity dedicated to cloud computing and AI workloads. Microsoft: the $3.3B Fairwater...
Microsoft / Mount Pleasant village ↗
PJMMISOWisconsinOhioMoratoriumBallot initiativeHyperscaler
Read why it matters →Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft all reported Q1 essentially simultaneously this past week. Final guidance: Amazon ~$200B (vs $125B in 2025), Google $175–185B (vs $91B), Meta $115–135B (vs $72B), Microsoft $110–120B (vs $90B). Total Big Four 2026 capex...
Tom's Hardware ↗
PJMMISOVirginiaOhioMoratoriumHyperscaler
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