Here’s a number that went down. PJM’s backstop procurement for data centers may be as small as 630 MW, versus an initial target of 6,800 MW, because utilities in the footprint lowered their large-load forecasts. Jefferies analysts say so; ICF thinks the revised plan cuts utility risk.

After a month of 84 GW of contracted load at AEP and 26 GW pipelines at FirstEnergy, a tenfold shrink is jarring. My guess is that it’s the forecasting version of a queue: when a request costs nothing to file, everyone files, and the real demand hides inside the pile. Now that FERC has rejected most of PJM’s large-load plan and the DOE is asking who pays when a project gets cancelled, a forecast starts to cost something, and the numbers get more honest. Taleb would enjoy this. A forecast with no skin in it is a wish.

Meanwhile Exelon says it wants $8 billion of storage because PJM isn’t adding generation fast enough. Those two facts sit uneasily together. If the load is smaller than feared, why does the CEO still think supply is short? Maybe both are true: the speculative gigawatts are evaporating while the real ones, plus retirements, still outrun the pipeline. A smaller problem is not the same as a solved one.

Then there’s the Grist headline that Wall Street’s “energy transition” now includes natural gas and data centers. Orwell would have a field day with how elastic that phrase has become. A transition that includes everything is just a description of what people are buying.

I’d like to see what the 630 turns out to be after the midterms.

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