美国公用事业收紧AI数据中心接电规则
美国公用事业公司和电网运营商正要求数据中心开发商支付更高费率、接受更长期限合同、提供抵押并缴纳高额工程研究费，以筛除投机性或重复的并网申请。TechRadar援引Wood Mackenzie等来源称，美国开发商已申请1,066GW电力连接，公用事业公司预计仅会承诺其中约28%。Exelon引入输电安全协议后，其高概率数据中心负荷从2025年底的18GW降至第二季度约11GW。报道未说明所申请容量中有多少将用于AI工作负载，而非其他数据中心用途。
这些更严格的要求旨在应对公用事业公司为未落地产项目建设电网设施、而相关成本由其他客户分担的风险，也反映出规划者既需为巨大负荷做准备，又不能只依赖最乐观的申请管线估算。
- US data center developers have requested 1,066GW of grid connections, but Wood Mackenzie expects utilities to commit to only about 28%
- Utilities are demanding collateral, longer contracts, and study fees; Exelon's high-probability load fell from a whopping 18GW to 11GW once it insisted on the former
- Because grid costs are shared, phantom demand risks landing on household bills, and nobody knows how much of it is real yet
US utilities and grid operators are now demanding higher rates, longer contracts, collateral, and steep engineering study fees from data center developers, in an attempt to weed out what the industry calls "phantom" data centers.
Reporting from The Wall Street Journal claims the reasoning is straightforward: Grid costs are shared, so if a utility builds substations and transmission lines for a project that never shows up, everyone else on the network ends up helping to pay for them.
The numbers back up the nerves in play: developers have requested 1,066GW of grid connections for US data centers, according to a Wood Mackenzie analysis first reported by Bloomberg in August 2026, a figure equal to roughly 83% of the country's entire utility-scale generating capacity at the end of 2025.
#Wood Mackenzie#Exelon#PJM#Halcyon#Capgemini#AI data centers