The grid nobody regulates.

Data centers didn't stop building. They just stopped asking permission.  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

The desks cleared, the headlines moved on, and one line buried in a pipeline filing kept pulling at me. Evening. Data Centers Are Building Their Own Private Grid. Ninety gigawatts of power generation. On private land. Off the public grid. Nobody votes on it. This morning I wrote about McKinsey's finding that 60% of data center operators now plan on-site generation paired with grid access. The morning treated it as a workaround. Tonight I want to tell you what it actually is. It is a second grid. Being built in private. Mostly on gas. Cleanview analyzed 59 behind-the-meter data center projects in a report this year. Total announced generation: roughly 90 GW. That is more capacity than every nuclear plant in America combined. Developers announced 57 GW of it in 2025 alone. Another 26 GW came in the first five months of 2026. S&P Global tracks the pipeline too. Through Q1 2026, their CERA unit counted 130 North American projects planning to build their own power plants. More than 80% of the announced capacity burns natural gas. 90 GW announced Behind-the-meter data center generation. Only 2 GW is actually running. — Cleanview, mid-2026 Read that gap. Ninety gigawatts on paper. Two gigawatts in reality. The private grid is 98% blueprint and 2% steel. But the steel is coming fast.       Jeff Brown: "If I Could Only Buy One AI Stock, This Would Be It" Its patented tech can produce intelligence up to 1,000 times FASTER than regular AI… And it's the same size Nvidia was back in 2016, before it exploded high enough to turn $5,000 into an entire retirement nest egg of $1.89 million. Click here because this could be the only stock you need to retire.       If moratoriums were supposed to slow data centers down, why is the private buildout accelerating? Because behind-the-meter skips the line. No grid interconnection queue. No utility approval. No public hearing. A developer buys land, runs a gas pipe, bolts down generators, and plugs in the servers. The local grid never knows. The deals are already signed. On October 1, Enerflex announced a contract to build 450 MW of gas-fired generation for an unnamed data center developer. In July, Joule unveiled a 1.3 GW campus in Utah that will run fully islanded from the local grid. In Texas, a developer called Hedgehog signed a fuel supply deal with Japanese energy giant Idemitsu to feed a 600 MW campus by end of 2027. Last month, Woodway announced a 22-mile dedicated pipeline for a single hyperscale project. "Don't think of us as just a behind-the-meter solution provider." — Chad Zamarin, EVP, Corporate Strategic Development, Williams Companies, Q1 2026 earnings Williams is right. This is not a workaround. It is a structural shift. Pipeline companies are becoming power companies. Data center developers are becoming utilities. And the public grid that was supposed to serve everyone is being bypassed by the customers big enough to build their own. The gas demand: Enbridge alone is fielding 50+ data center deals totaling up to 10 billion cubic feet per day. That would more than double the gas the entire power sector burns today. The pipeline race: TC Energy approved a $1.5 billion expansion of its Columbia Gas system to serve new data center generation. Williams is building a dedicated line to Meta's Utah campus. The blind spot: Behind-the-meter generation sits outside most state utility regulation. No rate case. No public comment. No emissions reporting in most jurisdictions. The fastest-growing power fleet in the country has the least oversight. The moratorium wave pushed data centers off the public grid. It didn't stop them. It just moved the buildout to private land where the rules are thinner. Every town that voted no made the private grid a little more inevitable. ⚡ Charged Up Three pieces that map the grid nobody regulates. Behind-the-Meter Gas Is Now the Default for Any Campus Above 150 MW → Latitude Media. The best single overview of the BTM shift: who's building, where, and why the public grid loses either way. Pipeline Companies Are Becoming Data Center Power Suppliers → S&P Global. The deal-by-deal rundown: Williams, TC Energy, Enbridge, Energy Transfer. Every major midstream name is in the game. The Paradox: Grid Prices Rise, BTM Gets Cheaper, More Leave the Grid → Avanza Energy. The doom loop explained. Every data center that leaves the grid makes the grid more expensive for everyone who stays. The public grid is losing its biggest customers. The private grid doesn't answer to anyone. Every megawatt that moves behind the meter is one the rest of us pay more to replace. — Theodore The Capital Current ⚡ Every financial story has a power line running through it.   Tap to add your vote Is the private grid good or bad for the rest of us? ✅ Good. It takes load off the public grid.🔴 Bad. It leaves everyone else with the bill.🤔 Both. That's the problem. 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