President Trump's executive orders on energy are not enough on their own for the industry to meet the rising demand for AI and data centers, and experts told RTO Insider that another attempt at permitting reform is needed.

With days left in his administration, President Joe Biden issued an executive order aimed at siting and permitting cutting-edge artificial intelligence data centers on federal land by 2027.

Virginia legislators introduced a series of bills they hope to pass in a short session this year aimed at addressing demand growth from data centers through cost allocation of utility rates, increased transparency in planning and tying tax incentives to efficiency requirements.

PJM’s Andrew Gledhill presented a proposal to the Planning Committee to revise the installed reserve margin and forecast pool requirement for the third 2025/26 Incremental Auction.

A recent NERC report discussed the potential reliability challenges associated with load loss from data centers.

The rising opposition to the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project, a 67-mile, 500-kV transmission line, and general dissatisfaction with PJM and utility grid planning and interconnection policies, are driving new bills in the General Assembly.

The data center dilemma centers first on a familiar mismatch of timescales. Utilities and their regulators tend to plan based on the small, incremental demand growth. But development and the power demand it generates move at ever-increasing digital speed.