top of page
  • X - Sean Walsh
  • LinkedIn
Search

News: US Regulators Issue Order Requiring Datacenters To Pay For Grid Expansion



December 18, 2025 (Washington, DC): The five-member Federal Energy Regulatory Commission held an open meeting and released a 100-page order related to America's AI electricity shortage.


Key Points:


  1. In effect, FERC ordered PJM, which delivers electricity to 67 million customers across 12 midwest and mid-Atlantic states, to take various steps to protect residential electricity customers from grid expansion costs related to the addition of new datacenters to the region.


  2. The Commissioners presented this 100-page regulatory nightmare as a positive step for America, with Chair Laura Swett saying "Today, FERC is pushing our country forward in the artificial intelligence and manufacturing revolution".


  3. Datacenters are apparently required to pay for local grid expansion, before they can connect directly to existing power plants, behind the meter.


  4. While it seems good to protect Americans from the burden of datacenter-driven grid expansion cost, it seems clear that these new hurdles to datacenter expansion and energization will serve to slow the pace of American AI computing expansion.


  5. If America was already facing a 44 Gigawatt AI electricity shortage just in the next two years, then it seems this has increased the problem.


  6. PJM customers may now be protected from the threat of increased electricity prices due to local datacenter expansion.


  7. However, they now seem more exposed to an even greater threat. This is the threat of China winning the race for AI supremacy. What will it matter if PJM customers are saving a few dollars per month on electricity, if the US falls to Chinese AI superiority?



Federal Regulation... Protecting American's From One Risk, Only To Expose Them To A Much Larger Threat?


At the risk of playing the cynic, I can't help but point out that, while I supect FERC's intentions are well-placed, this seems like a classic case of missing the forest for the trees.


As I have shared elsewhere in this blog, China has positively humiliated the US for over 20 years, in electricity expansion. What is now clear, in 2025, is that electricity production is the real race, behind the headline "race for AI supremacy".


I invite you read my book, and join me in precipitating a 21st century AI Manhattan Project to save our great nation.


For a variety of reasons, explained throughout this blog, and my book, the only solution to this electricity crisis appears to be modular, off-grid computing clusters.


This is why I invented and patented a modular Solar Computing Cluster, and founded www.639solar.com .


Solar Computing Clusters allow unlimited datacenter expansion, uninhibited by legacy grid and related supply-chain delays, which are significant and cause many projects to just get cancelled.


I invite you to reach out to me, and my team, to discuss what appears to be the only solution to this existential American crisis. Email me here, or connect with me on LinkedIn.



Sources:


  1. Federal Regulators Issue Order Requiring Large-Load Users Pay To Grow Grid, ZeroHedge, John Houghey

  2. December 18, 2025 Open Meeting, FERC

  3. Datacenters Added $9.4 Billion In Costs On Biggest US Grid, Benton

  4. USA Datacenters, DatacenterMap

  5. China's Evolving Industrial Policy For AI, Rand

  6. Accelerating Federal Permitting Of Datacenter Infrastructure, The White House

  7. US Electricity Grid & Markets, EPA


bottom of page