• THE GRID
The Day Data Centers Got a Rulebook
On July 16, FERC gave NERC a single task. Write the first mandatory grid rules for data centers. Deadline: December 31.
NERC delivered Monday. Sixty-six days early.
In a special meeting on October 26, the Board of Trustees voted to send five new reliability standards to FERC for final approval. CLO-001, CLO-002, and CLO-003 cover computational loads. FAC-001 and FAC-002 cover facilities. They apply to data centers, crypto mines, and any "computational load" of 50 megawatts or greater at 100 kilovolts or higher.
"An acceleration in the delivery of capacity to meet growing demand."
That's what is pushing onto the grid. And until Monday, none of it followed mandatory rules.
Every coal plant in the country follows NERC standards. Every reactor. Every gas turbine. But a 500-megawatt data center — pulling as much power as a mid-size city — followed none. Zero.
The new standards cover modeling, protection, monitoring, and coordination with grid operators. Data centers must now show what they look like on the wire. How they respond during a fault. What trips off and what stays put.
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New Standards
5
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Load Threshold
50 MW
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Days Early
66
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GOOGL 2026 Capex
$195–205B
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By the end of this month, Elon Musk is about to shock the world again.
And will unleash enough wealth to make every household in America $2.38 million.
These moved fast. First ballot passed September 22. Final ballot cleared October 15 with broad support. Eleven days later, the Board made it official.
The original draft set the bar at 20 megawatts. Industry pushed back. NERC raised it to 50. That carved out hundreds of smaller sites. But the big campuses — the ones straining the grid — are now in scope.
And NERC isn't done. On October 21, its Standards Committee approved a Phase 2 project targeting ride-through and active power recovery. Those are the rules that would force a data center to stay online during a grid fault — not trip off all at once.
In May, NERC issued its highest alert — Level 3 — with seven required actions for utilities managing large computational loads. Monday's vote turns those warnings into binding standards.
On the other side of the ledger, the capital keeps moving. Alphabet spent $80.6 billion on capex in the first half alone. The four largest hyperscalers are on pace for $725 billion in combined 2026 capex.
The spending side gets the headlines. But the rules side just caught up.
I've watched this gap grow for months. Massive capital flooding onto the grid. No mandatory rulebook behind it. That changed Monday.
Data centers now answer to the same grid authority as power plants. The standards are on FERC's desk. The only question is how fast they sign off.
How A $2.80 Play Turned Into Nearly $500k Nest Egg
In February 2017, I called my father and told him to buy Nvidia.
Back then, most of his friends still called it “that video game company.”
It was going for just $2.80 split adjusted....
Today his stake is worth almost $500,000 — a gain of more than 7,000%.
Why am I telling you this?
Because right now, I’m making the same kind of call.
And this time, I’m letting you in on it too.
• BLACKOUT WATCH
The Rules Exist on Paper — Not on the Grid
NERC made the rules this week. The grid won’t feel them this winter. Two things sit between what’s written and what’s running — and neither clears before the cold hits.
The enforcement gap. NERC adopted five data center standards Monday. They still need FERC approval. Then comes the implementation period — months, not weeks. The earliest any rule takes effect is mid-2027 at best. This winter, every data center on the grid runs under zero mandatory computational load standards. NERC's own winter assessment warned that round-the-clock data center demand is "altering the daily load shape" and stretching peak periods longer. The Phase 2 ride-through project was approved eight days ago. It's years from being finished.
Battery bans spread. Bloomfield, Connecticut, didn't just ban data centers last week. It banned battery energy storage in every zoning district too. If more towns follow — and at least six Connecticut towns have already moved to restrict data centers — the grid could lose one of its fastest-growing reliability tools. Batteries fill the gap on cold winter evenings when solar is gone and gas plants run flat out. Banning storage alongside data centers doesn't cut risk. It doubles it.
The new rulebook was adopted Monday. It won't be in force before the first cold snap.
• RESISTANCE
Connecticut Draws the Line
A small town north of Hartford did something last week I hadn't seen before. It didn't just ban data centers. It banned batteries too.
Bloomfield's planning and zoning commission voted to block data centers and battery energy storage in every zoning district. The ban killed a proposed 1-million-square-foot facility from Atlas Capital Group on a 44-acre parcel at Griffin Road North.
Bloomfield, CT banned data centers and battery energy storage across all zoning districts on October 22. At least six Connecticut towns have now blocked or restricted data center development. State Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff plans statewide legislation.
Bloomfield isn't alone. East Lyme’s zoning commission voted unanimously to ban all data centers last week — one of the first blanket bans in the state.
The contradiction is hard to miss. Connecticut still runs an active state data center tax incentive program. The state offers breaks to attract the very facilities its towns are racing to ban.
The national count keeps climbing. At least 575 active data center restrictions exist across 46 states. Thirteen governors have signed executive orders. A wave of November ballot measures will add more.
But Bloomfield stands out. Most towns block data centers alone. Bloomfield also blocked the backup power and grid storage that go with them.
That isn't just anti-data-center. That's anti-grid-solution.
When a town bans both the load and the resource that balances it, the math breaks for everyone — ratepayers, builders, and the grid itself.
