u/Energy_Balance

The average person is not likely to have much knowledge of the electricity system. This article focuses on a part of it.

Unscheduled generation and load changes cause frequency changes and inertia, AGC, and operator actions keep the frequency within limits, in particular preventing frequency excursions which would trip under frequency or over frequency generator relays.

A great resource is the Oak Ridge National Lab, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the DOE Office of Electricity grid frequency studies and event library. They work with several universities.

About 3 years ago, Microsoft was forecasting their need for a handful of 4GW AI training data centers. Today I believe Meta's Louisiana data center is going to be 7GW. Let's hope those are understood in the large load dynamics interconnection studies.

Here are examples of frequency vs time studies of generation trips:

https://www.youtube.com/@fnet

Connecting, disconnecting, and dynamics are concerns.

'“I applaud NERC’s proactive efforts on these matters,” Swett said. FERC set the deadlines because “they are a great mechanism for producing results,” she said.

As part of its Large Loads Action Plan, NERC expects to issue the proposed reliability standards and draft registry criteria for public comment in August, it said Thursday.'

At one time domestic piped natural gas in the US was $9, then down to $3.

The combination of NextEra and Dominion Energy would create the largest utility company in the United States — if the $67 billion megamerger successfully runs the regulatory gauntlets in Virginia and Florida. If that happens, it also becomes the latest big deal in a fast-changing U.S. power industry that appears to be gorging on acquisition opportunities. That’s thanks largely to AI-driven power demand.

There were 23 electricity mergers and acquisitions announced from December 2025 through this May, totaling an eye-watering $216 billion, according to a report by the PwC consulting group. That value is up 173 percent from the $79 billion in mergers and acquisitions activity logged by the electricity sector from December 2024 through May 2025. While NexEra’s bid to acquire Dominion is stealing headlines, other mergers and acquisitions are going through at a dizzying pace. Constellation’s $16 billion acquisition of Calpine in January created the U.S.’s largest electricity producer, giving Constellation access to Calpine’s natural gas fleet.

Alphabet, which owns Google, jumped into the power generation fray after it announced it would acquire wind and solar developer Intersect Power for $4.75 billion in December. And a consortium led by BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners and EQT is proposing to take AES Corp. private as part of a $33 billion acquisition, giving AES more capital to deliver 11.8 gigawatts of contracted energy agreements with tech customers.

“AI-driven load growth continues to be a central driver of M&A activity,” the authors of the PwC report wrote. “Constrained grid capacity is driving some hyperscalers to invest directly in generation, resulting in an unprecedented confluence of the technology and power sectors.” Big company, hard to regulate But the proposed NextEra-Dominion tie-up is facing scrutiny in Virginia, write my colleagues Adam Aton and Kylie Williams.

Northern Virginia is home to “Data Center Alley,” the cluster of counties outside of Washington with the largest concentration of data centers. Democratic state Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg of Virginia said allowing NextEra to grow by moving into Virginia “should be worrisome to everybody.” At the same time, VanValkenburg told Adam, the state is facing spiking power demand. “This is going to be a really big company. It’s going to be really hard to regulate,” VanValkenburg said. “It can kind of flip both ways,” he said. “We do need a ton of energy supplies in Virginia.”

Increasing power costs are a main concern in Virginia, especially after NextEra’s utility subsidiary Florida Power & Light got the green light for a $7 billion rate hike in Florida, among the largest hikes in U.S. history. FPL has also been plagued by scandals, including allegations it supported “ghost candidates” in political races and had a journalist surveilled. Dominion has directed the conversation toward the need for capital investment. “This is a critical moment for Virginia,” Ed Baine, president of Dominion Energy Virginia, said at a regulatory meeting this month. “This is also a critical moment for our industry.” Both companies say investments can be made without driving up power prices. Consumer advocates say that may not be the case. “They smell an opportunity here to squeeze more profit out of Virginia than Dominion has been able to thus far — especially in regards to its cash cow, which is data centers,” said Shelby Green, a Florida-based research and communications manager for the Energy and Policy Institute, a utility watchdog.