Themes, Next Steps, and Action Items

Results from the 2025 Fall Conference Workshop on Data Centers, held November 4, 2025, resulted in the development of five key themes (see below), as well as a short list of action items and next steps to continue to advance this initiative:

1) THEME: Data Center Payments

• The premise that data centers could pay to increase incentives for other customers to provide load flexibility was generally supported – up to a point. Considerable skepticism exists around whether load flexibility could be “big enough” to accommodate the whole increase in data center loads, however, this is a red herring. Nobody thinks that solving “the whole” problem is necessary for load flexibility to be a more important part of the solution than it has been to date.

• Workshop participants drew the analogy to data centers contributing to the local tax base in exchange for siting. It is reasonable to expect data centers to contribute to load flexibility incentives in exchange for accelerating interconnection and energization.

2) THEME: Transmission

• How do we get the “value” paid out to the flexible resources? This discussion included utility programs, aggregator-run VPPs, and payments made directly from data center owner/operators to each of these.

• Congestion: Interconnections of major new loads (ie. a 1GW data center) can change the pattern of congestion over a wide region. How much does “dispersed” flexibility throughout that region buy you? How “conservative” will transmission operators be in allowing the interconnection and energization of such data centers, given NERC constraints?

• Can load flexibility interrupt the “first-in, first-out” management of RTO interconnection queues?

• Perhaps more “utility” than just “transmission,” would an accelerated review process (a “point load IRP”) that meets bi-weekly, instead of the traditional IRP process, make a difference? While each process can inform the other, there was consensus that any measures co-funded by data centers could not wait for the usual pace of resource planning.

3) THEME: Distribution

• Issues around locational constraints created skepticism that there was “enough” flexible load on the correct distribution segments to make any difference. The consensus among participants was that flexibility or alternative generation had to come from the data center itself; co-located on one side of the meter or the other, but on the same side of the relevant substation.

4) THEME: “Not Just Peak”

• Participants noted that many of the largest grid problems over last few years have been related to ancillary services more than peak loads. If problems that arise from serving data centers are similar (i.e., rapidly changing usage, frequency / voltage issues), does paying more via DR / VPP programs even address this issue?

5) THEME: “Do Your Part”

• Data center cannot rely exclusively on other customers for greater load flexibility. Although data center loads are “mostly not flexible,” this means that they will need batteries, generators, or both; this can make them more flexible.

• New innovations inside the data center,  at the GPU level, and higher up at the Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) level, may be able to make data center loads more flexible in the future than they are today. Utilities may have a role in providing incentives for such innovations.

Next Steps and Action Items

At the completion of the workshop, the following actions were identified:

1. Start a relevant reading list for interested PLMA members and stakeholders, and schedule discussions similar to a “book club” format on issues related to load flexibility and data centers.
2. Host a webinar summary of the workshop discussion and themes, for interested newcomers, in January 2026.
3. Meet with PLMA’s C&I Interest Group to determine whether data center issues should be addressed by this group, or via a new Interest Group.
4. Reconnect with all interested parties at DTECH26 following the PLMA Symposia on February 3, 2026.
5. Participate in the NWPPA Data Center and Load Growth Summit, Portland, OR | January 26, 2026.