Nobody Wants to Be Interruptible

A year ago, Energy Secretary Chris Wright directed FERC to standardize large-load interconnection, including faster access for loads that agree to be curtailed. In June, FERC ordered all six RTOs to revise or justify their large-load tariffs. At GridFwd 2026, Latitude Media's Maeve Allsup asked a utility and an RTO how flexible interconnection is working so far.

How the risk moves

Chris Lynn, head of data centers at Arizona Public Service (just under 1.5 million customers around Phoenix), says a flexible agreement is a reallocation of risk. Under a firm agreement, the utility may have to buy expensive spot-market capacity at peak and pass the cost on to ordinary ratepayers. Under a flexible one, the large load takes that risk by accepting curtailment or running its own backup power during peak windows. Bills are rising anyway because of inflation and equipment costs, Lynn says, but this shift could make them rise more slowly.

APS has signed about 400 MW of flexible agreements. It treats them as a reliability backstop until new generation and transmission are built, not as the main way to speed up grid access. Lynn says customer demand is weaker than developers suggest. Developers promise their data center tenant will accept some curtailment, and then a "Big Five" customer tries to negotiate that term out at the end. "Being treated like a second class citizen just doesn't sell very well," he said, and highly interruptible service looks like "a long-term key accounts nightmare."

Southwest Power Pool sees more uptake. Its FERC-approved pathway offers conditional service for up to seven years while the transmission needed for firm service is built. SPP has received through its new framework. Some applicants are using the conditional option, but SPP hasn't said how many. Because customers asked for it, SPP is also developing an indefinite non-firm, price-responsive option, under which loads would curtail at set price thresholds. FERC has not approved it yet.

The US Supreme Court opened its new term on Monday with arguments in a case brought by Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy. The companies want to stop a lawsuit in which the city of Boulder, Colorado, seeks damages for the effects of climate change. Boulder's suit has been working its way through the courts since 2018. SCOTUSblog calls it one of the most significant business cases of the year. Dozens of similar suits are pending around the country, and the outcome could kill them.

On a separate legal track, 21 states and four cities sued the Trump administration last week. They are challenging the EPA's repeal of all greenhouse gas limits on power plants.

Nuclear loans, oil and diesel

The Department of Energy is expected to announce a loan package of about $4 billion to Vistra Corp., according to Bloomberg and Reuters. The money would fund upgrades at three nuclear stations in Ohio and Pennsylvania. It follows nearly $20 billion in loans in June to joint ventures between Westinghouse and utilities that want to build new AP1000 reactors. Separately, South Korea agreed last week to help build six AP1000s and two of its own APR1400s. Westinghouse has previously accused Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power of copying the APR1400 from its design.

Brent crude rose to nearly $103 a barrel on Sunday. Yemen's Houthi rebels said they had hit two Saudi Aramco facilities, including a refinery in Riyadh, with ballistic missiles and drones. The Saudi-led coalition called those claims "misleading."

Utilities are entering a tougher financing environment just as their capital plans keep growing. Tim Keller, managing director of U.S. Bank's power and utilities group, told Utility Dive that rising interest rates will likely change how utilities raise money, even if demand for their debt has held up so far.

The rate backdrop

On Sept. 16 the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate from 3.75% to 4%, its first hike since 2023. Last week the 10-year Treasury yield climbed above 5.6% for the first time since 2002. Keller said fuel prices tied to the Iran War have not fallen back as quickly as expected once the Strait of Hormuz reopens. That has kept inflation sticky.

Utilities are especially exposed to these moves. A 2025 Redwheel analysis found U.S. utilities show "pronounced sensitivity" to interest rates. Because their business models depend on long-lived, regulated cash flows and capital-heavy infrastructure, higher rates raise the cost of debt and lower the present value of future earnings. Independent power producers such as Vistra, Constellation and Talen have largely escaped that pattern.

How financing may shift

Capital plans have been "ratcheted higher year over year" as utilities chase AI-driven data center load, Keller said. So far his clients have kept that spending in line with their credit metrics, but he said this gets "more challenging with rates going higher as quickly as they have." If rates stay "higher for longer," he expects more convertible debt, which is bonds investors can later exchange for stock. Utilities can use them to borrow at lower coupons in exchange for possible dilution.

Rivian delivered 19,248 vehicles in the third quarter of 2026. That beat analyst expectations and set a company record. It also puts deliveries above where they were a year earlier. That comparison matters because Congress and President Trump ended federal consumer EV incentives last September.

The quarter was the first real sales test for the R2, Rivian's cheaper SUV. During the same three months, Rivian formally took a nearly $6.6 billion Department of Energy loan for its Georgia factory. It also released plans for the site, including a rail connection and 1,000 acres of preserved woodland. Rivian sells its R1 and R2 only in the U.S. and Canada, so its numbers mostly reflect U.S. demand.

Two winners, everyone else slipping

Tesla may also be about to clear its year-ago level. It reported 486,532 deliveries, which Meyer puts about 2% below its third quarter of last year. Tesla doesn't break out sales by region, so its U.S. trend can't be confirmed.

No other automaker is close to a U.S. quarterly EV record. Ford, GM and Hyundai all saw domestic EV sales drop last quarter. The new Chevrolet Bolt is GM's only American-made vehicle priced under $30,000. It has sold just 8,090 units this year. GM now looks likely to cap the run at 35,000, down from a planned 150,000.

Demand destruction without decarbonization

Meyer sees two trends. First, the U.S. car market is drifting away from the rest of the world's. The oil shock from the U.S. war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has raised prices more sharply in parts of Europe, Africa and Asia than in most of North America. Global EV sales hit a record in the spring, but not in the U.S.

Two years after Hurricane Helene cut power, water and cell service across western North Carolina for weeks, communities are turning makeshift relief sites into permanent resilience hubs. McKenzie Jones of the Urban Sustainability Directors Network describes these as "existing community spaces that are used and trusted by residents." Asheville set aside $2 million this year to strengthen its existing hubs. The city manager has made a soft commitment to spend up to $10 million over the long term.

Solar microgrids: the numbers

The first of 26 planned microgrids is now running at Beacon of Hope in Marshall, a food pantry, laundromat and thrift store that serves about 1,600 families a week. Hunger there is up about 50% since last summer. Electricians from Rhino Renewables needed a little over a week to install solar panels and three batteries holding about 68 kWh. That is enough to back up the whole building, including its freezers and coolers, for at least a day with no sun and no grid connection.