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In a rare move, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced a few weeks ago that it wants the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to exert authority over large electric load interconnections. Energy Secretary Chris Wright directed the Commission to begin rulemaking that would effectively standardize and federalize the process for connecting large loads — those greater than 20 MW — to the grid. The DOE cited load growth driven by data center demand as the central reason for its request.
The National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates sounded alarm bells immediately, arguing that the proposal would circumvent state laws without which “there can be no guarantee that traditional retail customers will be protected from costs caused by the interconnection of large loads.” Americans are already feeling the strain of higher electric bills. A recent report by Powerlines notes that, “In the first three quarters of 2025, utility rate increase requests and approvals totaled more than $34 billion, more than double the $16 billion in requests and approvals over the same period in 2024.”
While it’s not certain FERC will agree to DOE’s rulemaking request, the debate around state vs. federal jurisdiction will be worth watching. What makes the request most interesting is DOE’s emphasis (Pgs. 11 & 12) on hybrid facilities, where new power generation is built nearby to serve large load consumers directly. It’s an approach that can be described as B.Y.O.P – Bring Your Own Power.
In past posts, I have written about how AI data center power demand is so fully outstripping the electric grid’s transmission capacity that the only reasonable path forward in the AI race is for designers to integrate off-grid power generation to serve their needs. Imagine scaled-down data centers operating as self-contained energy islands where generation, transmission, and distribution all happen next to a facility, and where interconnection jurisdiction isn’t a concern. This is where propane, working in tandem with renewable energy, offers a novel solution.
A 20 MW Off-grid AI Power Station
A 20 MW data center design offers several advantages. For starters, it can be an energy island because it can fit in the same 150,000 square feet as a Target department store. This configuration can house about 1,700 server racks with 50,000 server blades with 2 GPU chips per server. It may be true that massive scale creates efficiency but excellent power usage effectiveness, the most-used data center measure of efficiency, can still be achieved at a smaller scale. By contrast, Amazon’s Project Rainier is not an energy island. The 1,200-acre, $11 billion data center in New Carlisle, Indiana, in which Amazon expects to be running a million Trainium chips by the end of the year, will consume 2.2 GW – enough to power 1.6 million homes.
A second advantage of 20 MW-sized facilities has to do with “license-to-operate,” which refers to a community’s acceptance of an organization’s operations where that community holds political authority (it’s the more refined cousin of NIMBY-ism). At the end of March 2025, $64 billion in U.S. data center projects, 16 in total, had been blocked or delayed by communities who view the facilities negatively.
Issues ranging from rate increases to water usage and noise pollution to declining property values are driving bipartisan data center pushback. In a recent nationwide poll, only 44% of Americans would welcome a data center nearby. Proposed projects in Hogansville, Georgia; Tucson, Arizona; and a Google facility near Indianapolis have sparked anger among ratepayers and have animated election races in those locations.
A recent meeting in Danville, Pennsylvania, turned out several hundred concerned citizens clad in camouflage ball caps and red shirts to challenge Talen Energy officials about their plans to rezone roughly 1,300 acres from agricultural to industrial use for a 12- to 15-building data center. Reuters reported about the Talen Energy case, saying, “…the county planning commission recommended against approving the rezoning by a 6-1 vote – a decision that drew thunderous applause.” A reasonably sized, off-grid data center would likely generate much less public opposition.
Finally, energizing a 20 MW facility with on-site power generation is not a Project Rainier-sized problem. In fact, a Rolls Royce can handle it. The company has a 2.5 MW gas generator solution able to deliver its full output in just 45 seconds. Chain eight of these units together – each is the size of a 20 ft. ISO shipping container – and you have a fully energized data center in the footprint of a basketball floor. Take further steps to maximize the building design and gain even more power by incorporating solar and battery.
Rooftop solar on a building the size of a Target Super Center along with solar panels above every parking space yields about 375,000 square feet of surface area capable of generating approximately 15 MWh per day. Underneath the ground-mounted solar panels, use a 200 MW vanadium redox flow battery (the model developed by Rongke Power in Hong Kong is one option) to store 700 MWh of discharge. This gives the data center true islanding capability and ample black-start support. Taken together, we have an off-grid 20 MW+ data center powered by 8.6 acres of solar panels, 3,131 battery modules, and eight gas generators.
It’s unclear how long the data center building boom might last. Analysts are already worrying about the fact that AI infrastructure spending is massively outstripping AI revenue. The financial models, including debt borrowing capacity by companies like OpenAI, Amazon, Oracle, Google, and Microsoft, may prove to be the biggest bottleneck impeding continued development.
Several other challenges are already present. A shortage of skilled construction trade workers, for example, is forcing general contractors to configure their work offerings in ways never before contemplated. Keeping hot computer chips from melting down is another challenge. Data centers are increasingly looking to use water or specialized coolants to keep server racks from shutting down.
The data center power challenge can be solved in many ways including, as we have demonstrated, ways that drastically reduce strain on public utilities and communities. A B.Y.O.P approach – where the “P” could stand for propane – is the ideal answer to DOE’s call for affordable, reliable, secure power for industries and individuals alike.