• THE GRID
Pennsylvania Just Became the New Virginia for Data Centers
35.3 gigawatts. That's the number that jumped off PPL Corporation's earnings call last Friday.
It's the size of PPL's advanced-stage data center pipeline in Pennsylvania alone. Up from 31.8 GW just one quarter ago. Up from 28.3 GW the quarter before that.
Pennsylvania is adding data center demand faster than any state I track right now.
And PPL isn't just watching it happen. The company went on offense. It partnered with Blackstone Infrastructure to form a joint venture called Invitium Energy. PPL owns 51%. Blackstone owns 49%. Their job: build power plants to feed data centers.
Last week, Invitium landed its first big deal. It agreed to build roughly 2 gigawatts of gas-fired generation for a QTS data center at Salem Township, Pennsylvania. The price tag: $5 billion to $7 billion.
"We're beginning to see those opportunities translate into tangible commercial progress."
Progress is one word for it. Explosion is another.
Of those 35.3 GW in the pipeline, 11.4 GW are under signed contracts. And 8.5 GW are already under construction — up 2 GW from last quarter.
PA DC Pipeline
35.3 GW
|
Under Construction
8.5 GW
|
PPL Capex '27–30
$25B
|
QTS / Invitium Deal
2 GW
|
Forget SpaceX, this is Elon’s Next Breakthrough
While everyone was distracted with the recent SpaceX IPO…
Elon Musk quietly filed a patent with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to protect what I believe will be his next breakthrough…
Something he called “the greatest tech invention in history.”
Elon is predicting this new AI breakthrough will unleash…
A $1 quadrillion new wealth wave.
That’s more than 30 times bigger than the entire U.S. economy.
And just to give you an idea of how much wealth we're talking about...
That would be enough to send a check for $2.8 million to every single American.
Click here to see the details because I believe this invention will make a lot of people rich.
PPL raised its capital plan to $25 billion for 2027 through 2030. That's $2 billion more than the prior plan. It bumped its long-term earnings growth target to 7%–9%.
Kentucky is in on this too. PPL's economic development pipeline there hit 14.7 GW. Of that, 12.8 GW is data center load.
For years, Virginia was the center of the data center world. It still hosts the most capacity. But the political winds have shifted there. Moratorium talk. Rate fights. Permit delays.
Pennsylvania sees the opening. PPL sees the opening. Blackstone sees the opening. And they're building fast — with a "growth pays for growth" model designed to keep existing ratepayers off the hook.
The Invitium gas plants won't come online until 2032 and 2033. That's a long wait. But the contracts are signed. The turbines are being reserved. The money is real.
When a regulated utility and the world's biggest alternative asset manager join forces to build power for AI, the energy map is rewriting itself. Pennsylvania is the new front line.
A Free Stock Pick, From Me to You
Elon's been paying this company since 2012. When NVIDIA tried to buy it, he fought the deal.
Now he wants 1,000,000 AI satellites in orbit. Every one pays this company a royalty.
Dylan believes shares take off December 8th.
Grab the pick now... or watch it run without you.
• WIRED IN
Signals From the Wire
One week. Every big name in power made a move. They read like the same bet, placed four different ways.
Constellation Energy (CEG) posted a monster Q3 on Sunday. Adjusted earnings hit $5.06 per share — crushing the Street's $3.72 estimate by 36%. The company has locked in roughly 8,500 MW of long-term deals so far this year, including a 690 MW PPA with Amazon backing a $3 billion-plus expansion of Calvert Cliffs. Full-year guidance rose to $12.50–$12.80 per share.
While Constellation stacks nuclear megawatts, NextEra Energy (NEE) pitched its vision at the EEI Financial Conference this weekend. The focus: what a combined NextEra-Dominion company looks like. The merger, announced in May, would create the world's largest regulated utility — serving roughly 10 million customers across four of the fastest-growing states. Regulatory filings are underway. A close is expected in the second half of 2027.
PPL Corporation (PPL) didn't just raise its growth outlook. It revealed the first real contract from Invitium, its joint venture with Blackstone. That 2 GW deal with QTS could carry a $5–7 billion price tag. It's not in PPL's base earnings plan yet. If it converts, it's pure upside.
On Capitol Hill, the BAAJA permitting bill faced its first cloture vote on Monday evening. The 417-page bill would streamline permits for power plants, transmission lines, and pipelines — exactly the kind of reform the grid buildout needs. Betting markets gave it just a 39% chance heading in. Whatever the result, the lame-duck session just became the most important energy policy window of the year.
Nuclear deals, utility megamergers, and billion-dollar joint ventures — all in one week. The money is flowing toward whoever can deliver power fastest.
• VOLTAGE
Hydrogen Fuel Cells Want Inside the Server Rack
Fuel cells for data centers aren't new. Bloom Energy has been selling them for years.
But a small company called Renewable Innovations just joined a DOE-backed research project that takes the idea somewhere much more radical: putting fuel cells directly at the server rack.
The project, run through the National Laboratory of the Rockies, aims to build and test a hydrogen fuel cell system that sits inside the compute rack itself. Not in a building next door. Not on a pad outside. Inside the rack, next to the chips.
Why does that matter? Because every foot of wire between a power source and a chip loses energy. Racks in big AI clusters can draw 100 kilowatts or more each. Cutting the distance to zero could save meaningful amounts of heat and loss.
Renewable Innovations isn't the only one moving. ECL, a U.S. data center developer, signed a deal with Sweden's PowerCell Group in July for fuel cell systems across its sites — starting at its Santa Clara campus. The non-binding pipeline: 300 MW.
These are still small numbers. Bloom's 900 MW deal with NTT dwarfs all of them. But the direction is clear. Hydrogen fuel cells are going from the power yard to the server room.
The hurdle? Cost and fuel supply. Green hydrogen is expensive. And there's no pipeline to most data center sites. But the DOE is funding this research for a reason — they see a path.
The AI power race isn't just about building more plants. It's about moving power closer to the chip. Rack-level fuel cells are a bet that the last mile of electricity might matter most.
The next AI IPO could be $2 trillion. Three public companies could offer exposure now, and one most investors haven't connected to the story. Get all three tickers free.
