Electricity demand across PJM is accelerating at a pace few anticipated, driven by AI, data centers, and advanced manufacturing. What was once a long-term planning challenge has become an immediate test of market design, grid reliability, and regulatory authority.

In response, the White House has stepped in, urging faster generation development and greater investment certainty. PJM is deploying new reliability tools. States are increasingly acting to protect consumers as capacity prices rise. Yet despite gigawatts of generation approved for interconnection, much of that supply is not arriving fast enough — or in the right form — to meet near-term needs.

The result is a high-stakes question facing policymakers, developers, and market participants alike: how do we move faster without breaking the system we rely on?

In episode 11 of Accelerating Energy, Sidley partner Ken Irvin sits down with Terence Healey of Sidley’s Energy practice and Todd Snitchler, President and CEO of EPSA, to unpack PJM’s evolving approach to large loads, the implications of FERC’s co-location order, the White House’s intervention, and the expanding role of states in an increasingly stressed power market.

Executive Producer: John Metaxas, WallStreetNorth Communications, Inc.

As data centers continue to put stress on the nation’s electricity grid, federal regulators are moving quickly to stave off overwhelming it. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is now considering major reforms for large-load interconnections and has launched an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking. Final comments were due on December 5, and final action is expected by April 30, 2026. But conflict is threatening the process, as developers, utilities, state commissions, and other major players remain sharply divided over jurisdiction, cost allocation, reliability, and the pace of interconnection.

What themes are emerging from the comments on FERC’s large-load interconnection rulemaking? How should FERC set guidelines that respect state jurisdiction while still ensuring consistency and transparency? And how is the large-load interconnection landscape likely to evolve in the near term?

In the tenth episode of Accelerating Energy, host and Sidley partner Ken Irvin is joined by Jessica Hogle, head of government relations and regulatory affairs at GridCARE, a startup accelerating speed-to-power for AI data centers by unlocking spare capacity on the existing grid. Together, they dig into the key takeaways from the comment record, the federal-state jurisdictional tensions, the risks of stranded costs, and how affordability and technology trends may inform FERC’s next steps.

Executive Producer: John Metaxas, WallStreetNorth Communications, Inc.

DOE Secretary Wright’s Federal Power Act Section 403 direction to FERC calls for a sea-change in the way large energy users — especially data centers — interconnect to the power grid.

In the ninth episode of Accelerating Energy, host and Sidley partner Ken Irvin is joined by colleagues Terence Healey, a partner in Sidley’s Energy practice, and Peter Bruland, a senior managing associate in the firm’s Supreme Court, Appellate, and Litigation Strategies practice. Together, they examine how this rulemaking may affect the cooperative federalism balance and change the large load interconnection process, transmission planning, capacity markets, and the pace of new infrastructure deployment. Hear what to expect and how to stay positioned for what’s next in the power-hungry data economy.

Executive Producer: John Metaxas, WallStreetNorth Communications, Inc.