The grid wasn't built for this scale. Now it has to be.

This special power and energy edition of The Navigator examines how AI-driven data center growth is straining the US grid faster than the interconnection system was designed to handle. It covers supply-side bottlenecks and emerging clean firm power technologies, demand-side flexibility and its billion-dollar stakes, new grid reliability requirements from NERC, and how carbon accounting and community opposition are both evolving in response.

Key takeaways:

• Community opposition has become a key determinant of whether data center projects get built, and three distinct developer response postures separate the projects that advance from those that stall.

• The interconnection queue in ERCOT and PJM holds over 500 GW on paper, but actual connection timelines run two to five times longer than FERC targets, withdrawal rates are high, and the One Big Beautiful Bill is now reshaping the technology mix entering the pipeline.

• Power system modeling shows that curtailing an average of 5% of data center demand for under 1% of operating hours can prevent up to $5.5 billion in annual consumer welfare losses, even at 40 GW of ERCOT buildout.

• NERC's first-ever Level 3 Alert on data center loads introduces new grid modeling requirements across three timescales, and raises the interconnection bar for large loads.

• Proposed GHG Protocol scope 2 revisions would expose a significant emissions gap for large buyers using annual RECs, with the greatest exposure in PJM and ERCOT.