• THE GRID
The Grid Got a Break This Summer. Don't Get Comfortable.
NERC's summer outlook flagged three elevated-risk regions — New England, Saskatchewan, and the Pacific Northwest — but no high-risk areas for the first time in years.
The grid added 58 GW of new power in the past year. Reserves look healthy. Texas dropped its odds of an energy emergency from 3.1% to 0.43%.
Sounds reassuring. I don't buy it.
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New Capacity Added
58 GW
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Solar (On-Peak)
16.4 GW
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ERCOT Reserve Margin
67.9%
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Peak Demand Growth
+11 GW
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The calm has a simple cause. Data center load showed up slower than planned. ERCOT cut its demand forecast by 4.6%.
Not because fewer data centers are coming. Because they're stuck in line.
S&P Global's Doug Giuffre put it plainly. The delays "may ease some of the near-term supply challenges," he said. But "substantial new load is slated for the next 2–3 years and will require a stronger supply response."
So the demand didn't vanish. It got pushed to the right. And when it shows up, who builds the grid to meet it?
That's the part that keeps me up at night. Utilities plan to spend $1.29 trillion through 2030. That's roughly double their old pace.
But the construction industry is short 349,000 skilled workers right now.
"Everybody at the moment discusses about what to build, but I think we have to think about what to operate and what to service. We will need a lot of workforce."
He's right. You can plan a $1.29 trillion build. You can order the turbines.
But if you can't hire the people to bolt them down, wire them up, and keep them running, the plan stays on paper.
Deloitte's Tom Keefe said utility capex hit $215 billion last year alone. First-quarter 2026 saw 44 deals worth $68 billion. The money is there. The hands are not.
This summer's calm isn't proof the grid is fixed. It's a head start that's being wasted if we can't train the workers to use it.
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• RESISTANCE
States Aren't Waiting for Congress. They're Writing the Rules Now.
On May 28, Oregon's public utility commission approved something big. A new tariff framework for Portland General Electric. It assigns more grid costs to the customer classes growing fastest. That means data centers.
Oregon's PUC approved PGE's Schedule 96 tariff, tying large-load interconnection approvals to clean energy targets and shifting shared infrastructure costs onto fast-growing users. California's CPUC is in its own proceeding on data center cost allocation. At the federal level, the GRID Act would bar any increase in consumer electricity prices caused by data centers.
Oregon moved first. California is close behind.
The CPUC is deep in a fight over three questions: Who pays for new transmission? Can costs shift to other ratepayers? Does the state even have the power to decide?
In Washington, Senators Hawley and Blumenthal want to go further. Their GRID Act would guarantee that no household sees a higher bill because a data center moved in next door. The bill hasn't passed. But the EIA already agreed to launch a mandatory data center energy survey by September 30.
The backdrop is ugly. Two-thirds of Americans say their electricity bill went up in the past year. They're making the connection between new data centers and higher rates — and they're showing up at hearings, town halls, and ballot boxes.
The political math is clear. If tech doesn't pay its share of the grid, voters will make sure someone does.
• BLACKOUT WATCH
Three Risks Hiding Inside a "Good" Summer
The workers don't exist yet. ABC estimates the construction sector needs 349,000 net new workers in 2026 and 456,000 in 2027 — on top of normal hiring. Guidehouse's Michelle Fay says the squeeze goes beyond utility payrolls into the contractors and vendors they depend on. She calls it the least-discussed risk relative to its size. You can't build a $1.29 trillion grid with last decade's labor force.
Weather just moved to the supply side. Less than a third of this summer's 58 GW in new on-peak capacity is solar. Another big chunk is hydro — and Washington state's snowpack sat at just 52% of normal this spring. NERC's models show the Northwest's real risk hour falls around 6 p.m. in early September, right as the sun fades and solar output drops. The hour of greatest need is the hour the new capacity is weakest.
Large loads are tripping offline without warning. NERC flagged recent events where big data center loads suddenly disconnected in the Eastern grid and ERCOT. When a single facility drops hundreds of megawatts in seconds, it creates the same kind of shock as losing a power plant. Grid operators are now scrambling to prepare for a risk they didn't plan for: demand that vanishes as fast as it appeared.
The numbers look good on paper. But paper doesn't keep the lights on when the sun sets, the workers don't show up, and a data center drops off the grid without a phone call.
