Faced with interconnection queues that stretch past six years in some markets, data center developers have started buying power directly from solar, wind, and battery storage projects instead of waiting on the public grid. This is the piece of the power crisis that connects two audiences who used to operate separately: renewable energy developers, who now have a new class of buyer for their electricity, and data center developers, for whom a well sited solar or storage projec

A 250 MW data center campus can now face roughly $1 million in non-refundable fees, and a wait of six or more years for grid interconnection in parts of PJM, before a single rack goes online. Those two numbers, drawn from LandGate's own research into the data center power crisis, explain why the traditional site selection checklist has quietly been rewritten. Land cost, tax abatements, and workforce availability still matter, but they no longer decide the outcome the way powe

Available transfer capacity, interconnection queue position, and offtake capacity are the three terms that now decide whether a data center or renewable energy site actually works, before land price, tax incentives, or fiber ever enter the conversation. If you can't quickly answer "how much power can this substation actually deliver, and how long until it's available," you don't yet have enough information to evaluate a site. This guide defines the terms that matter, in plain

On August 20, 2026, the Tennessee Valley Authority's board approved something utilities across the country are now racing to copy: a dedicated electricity rate class just for data centers, carrying an average 10% bill increase phased in over three years, plus new upfront capacity-commitment charges for any data center that wants to interconnect. TVA's leadership framed it plainly: the goal is to build "capacity and transmission systems necessary to be right below what the dem

BTM isn't a single technology, and the developers moving fastest are the ones building a power stack rather than betting on one source.