Accelerating Energy: Powering Business Through the Energy Transition

After years of relatively flat electricity demand, the power market is entering a new era. Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, electrification, and a wave of data-center development are driving surging demand — and raising a fundamental question: Can the power sector keep up? As new generation faces equipment backlogs, rising costs, interconnection delays, and regulatory timelines, data-center developers are looking for ways to secure power, while investors and lenders weigh which proje...

With strained supply chains, stubborn inflation, and the exploding demand from AI and data centers, the pressure on today’s power grid is unlike anything the industry has seen in decades. While solar, energy storage, and natural gas are all expanding rapidly, the question remains: are we building a system that can actually keep up? In episode 12 of Accelerating Energy, former PJM Chief Risk Officer Carl Coscia joins Sidley partner Ken Irvin to unpack the high-stakes tradeoffs between reliabil...

Electricity demand across PJM is accelerating at a pace few anticipated, driven by AI, data centers, and advanced manufacturing. What was once a long-term planning challenge has become an immediate test of market design, grid reliability, and regulatory authority. In response, the White House has stepped in, urging faster generation development and greater investment certainty. PJM is deploying new reliability tools. States are increasingly acting to protect consumers as capacity...

As data centers continue to put stress on the nation’s electricity grid, federal regulators are moving quickly to stave off overwhelming it. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is now considering major reforms for large-load interconnections and has launched an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking. Final comments were due on December 5, and final action is expected by April 30, 2026. But conflict is threatening the process, as developers, utilities, state commissions, and other ...

DOE Secretary Wright’s Federal Power Act Section 403 direction to FERC calls for a sea-change in the way large energy users — especially data centers — interconnect to the power grid. In the ninth episode of Accelerating Energy, host and Sidley partner Ken Irvin is joined by colleagues Terence Healey, a partner in Sidley’s Energy practice, and Peter Bruland, a senior managing associate in the firm’s Supreme Court, Appellate, and Litigation Strategies practice. Together, they examine how...