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Interconnection
This topic will explore critical topics such as streamlining the interconnection process, maintaining grid reliability, integrating renewable energy, and meeting regulatory requirements. Attendees will gain insights into innovative tools, technologies, and strategies that ensure a seamless and efficient interconnection process while supporting grid resilience and sustainability.
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*This schedule is filtered with Interconnection sessions.
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Utilities face a generational challenge in supporting massive load growth without compromising grid reliability or customer affordability. To meet this challenge, stakeholders have been rapidly innovating around large load interconnection, from engineering studies to interconnection models to cost allocation.
This workshop will introduce utilities and other stakeholders to a range of innovations being pursued, from some of the leading practitioners. It will begin with a review of the state of the data center pipeline today, and a presentation of high/mid/low integrated scenarios for large load growth. This will be followed by panel discussions between utilities, RTOs, and technology companies on the latest interconnection developments from across the country, with ample time reserved for Q&A. Attendees will come away with a firm grasp of where the industry is headed and which models they themselves may want to pursue to drive growth.
Part 1: The large load outlook and new interconnection models (12:30 PM – 2:00 PM)
Strategic planning for large load growth (12:30-1:00)
To open the workshop, we will begin with a review of the landscape of large load growth in the US. Beginning with a review of the data center pipeline today and supply-chain constraints, the presentation will outline Wood Mackenzie’s three long-term scenarios for large load growth, including power plant construction costs, natural gas prices, generation technology mix and annual large load demand. We’ll also consider technology factors, including power quality challenges for co-located generation and developments that could reduce long-term data center demand.
Presenter: Ben Hertz-Shargel, Wood Mackenzie
Interconnection 2.0 (1:00-1:40)
This panel will bring together utilities at the forefront of large load interconnection reform. We will discuss advances in cluster studies, study process automation, and joint planning of load and generation. Best practices will be shared for utilities that are earlier in their large-load journey.
Panelists: Jahnavi Gopi, PG&E; Judson Tillinghast, APS; Nate Rice, Dominion
Scalable interconnection for the AI era (1:40-2:00)
Improving hosting capacity for data centers is a challenge that has rarely progressed past the policy level. This presentation will review Dominion’s transmission hosting capacity platform, which leverages flexible inputs and scenario modeling to automate interconnection planning, and discuss platform enhancements on the roadmap.
Presenters: Nate Rice, Dominion; Brian Bassett, Simple Thread
BREAK (2:00-2:30)
Part 2: Innovating for speed and affordability (2:30 PM – 5:00 PM)
Speed to Reliable Power at the RTO level (2:30-2:50)
RTOs are moving as quickly as utilities to reform planning and interconnection processes to accommodate large-load growth. This presentation will discuss MISO’s Large Load Additions initiative and the Speed to Reliable Power focus area. Learn the essentials of the new ERAS process and zero-injection model for accelerated generated interconnection and the EPR process for large load transmission approval.
Presenter: Jenna Furnish, MISO
A path toward affordable AI (2:50-3:30)
With customer affordability a topline focus of federal and state regulators, utilities and RTOs are pursuing a range of strategies to solve for reliability and speed-to-power while minimizing cost, particularly for non-large load customers. We’ll hear views on the solution set from RTO, utility and large load developer perspectives.
Moderator: Ben Hertz-Shargel, Wood Mackenzie
Panelists: Justin Felt, Exelon; Gabe Tabek, Verrus; Jenna Furnish, MISO
BREAK (3:30-3:50)
Bring-your-own-customer-capacity (3:50 – 4:20)
Utilities have a unique opportunity to solve for speed-to-power and affordability at the same time by leveraging their own customers as grid service providers. APS and EnergyHub have a long history of turning customer programs into utility-scale grid assets and will discuss how this approach can be further scaled to meet the large-load challenge.
Moderator: Matthew Johnson, EnergyHub
Panelist: Kerri Carnes, APS
Flexibility solutions for data center interconnection (4:20-5:00)
Utilities and large-load developers have a range of options to break the logjam of load interconnection requests by supporting flexible interconnections. We’ll hear about how this works in planning and in operations, and the role that both onsite batteries and third-party VPPs can play in delivering flexibility.
Moderator: Justin Felt, Exelon
Panelists: Sarah Colvin, Camus Energy; Adam Scarsella, Voltus; Gabe Tabak, Verrus
At the conclusion of the workshop, attendees will be invited to stay for an informal networking session with the speakers, which will immediately precede the Opening Reception.
In Partership with:
Is Meeting Data Center Demand an Opportunity to Redefine the Future for Utilities?
Demand from data centers and AI represents the most significant load growth challenge for the utility sector in a generation. However, this challenge isn't just about adding capacity but is instead about fundamentally rethinking how, when, and where that power is generated and delivered. Ensuring reliable, affordable power for all will create transformative opportunities across the sector.
Join EPRI President and CEO Arshad Mansoor for an opening address that will detail how and why meeting this demand isn't just about energy efficiency, but a critical opportunity for utilities to shape their own future and enhance system resilience. His remarks will highlight how utilities can move beyond traditional planning to address data centers' unique needs and what it means to lead the conversation around distributed generation and new energy sources. Attendees will learn strategies to establish the next-generation energy paradigms that will help define the path forward.
The Next Evolution of AI: Defining the Future of Utility Forecasting
Unprecedented demand from data centers and AI mean that forecasting is no longer about extrapolating historical trends but instead about anticipating behaviors and needs, driven by DERs, extreme weather, and new load profiles. This panel will explore how leaders from across the space are doing so, as they move beyond proof-of-concept and discuss production-ready models that fundamentally redefine grid planning and operations.
Panelists will outline what it means to leverage advanced AI to simulate thousands of real-world future grid states, enabling utilities to stress-test resource portfolios and optimize interconnection queues by accurately forecasting unknown, high-growth load types. The discussion will also address the necessary data standards and required governance to ensure AI-driven forecasting is not only accurate but also understandable.
This session explores how flexibility is emerging as a powerful solution to unlock existing grid capacity and enable faster, more reliable data center growth.
Sponsored by
Opening Remarks: Why Storage is the New Primary Grid Infrastructure
AI hasn’t just increased power demand; it’s changed its shape. Data center compute workloads ramp in seconds, creating large demand fluctuations and power quality issues that are disrupting long-term utility load planning. This isn’t a capacity crisis — it’s a flexibility crisis, and it’s why “Bring Your Own Power” is fast becoming the dominant strategy for large AI loads.
Through storage-integrated architecture, data centers can transform from grid liabilities into flexibility assets that reconcile developer speed with utility reliability. Join Jeff Monday, Chief Growth Officer at Fluence, to see why storage is no longer supporting infrastructure — it’s becoming the power operating system of the AI economy, and the blueprint for interconnection that delivers value both today and over the next 20 years.
Keynote Panel: Aligning Developer, Utility, Community and Regulatory Interests
While the “how fast” and “how much” questions related to data center demand are well understood, actual answers ultimately depend on regional regulations, local grid health, community awareness and site-specific configurations. Success in this new landscape is about more than solutions and systems, but instead requires a new level of transparency and partnership between the people behind the power, on every side, and at every level.
Join us to explore what better connections between developers, utilities, regulators and communities can look like in order to reconcile their differing priorities to create a unified roadmap for the future of the grid.
Utilities and data center developers want the same thing: large loads connected to the grid, quickly, reliably, and affordably. But the current large load interconnection process wasn't designed for the speed or scale the market demands. Flexible grid connections offer a practical path forward. By combining firm and conditional service, utilities can unlock significantly more capacity on existing transmission infrastructure while data centers manage the limited constrained hours with on-site resources like batteries, generators, or compute flexibility. A recent study of six 500 MW data center sites within PJM, backed by Google, found that flexible connections increased available capacity at constrained sites by 1.5x to 2.3x, with grid power available more than 99% of hours and on-site resources dispatched roughly 40 hours per year.
In this session, a panel of hyperscale developers and utility leaders will share their takes on flexible connections, what's needed to offer and accept flexible service with confidence, how they impact affordability for all customers, and what to expect for the rest of 2026.
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