Jason Fordney

More transmission is needed to ease congestion in the West and to serve growing demand from data centers, manufacturing and electrification, the U.S. Department of Energy said in a draft transmission needs study released July 9. The report found that expanded transmission links crossing seams between regions and interconnections would have “the highest potential value to relieve transmission congestion and provide resource adequacy benefits.” kAmx? E96 (6DE[ 6IA2?565 EC2?D>:DD:@?

It’s obvious to anybody paying attention that the backlash against data centers and artificial intelligence itself is intensifying across the country, as elected officials and developers face extreme anger from the populace over the massive, water- and energy-guzzling facilities. An Amazon Web Services . Americans are having a visceral reaction to proposed data centers around the country.

While many of the current reliability risks to the bulk electric system listed by experts are familiar, the nature of those risks is changing, they said. The 2026 State of Reliability report by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation cited a number of risks that have been growing in recent years—mainly conventional-generation retirements and the rise of inverter-based resources. kAm%96C6 92D 366? “2 4C:E:42= D9:7E :? E96 ?2EFC6 @7 C6=:23:=:EJ C:D<[” }t#r D2:5 :?