The United States is facing historic challenges as it races to secure power for the build-out of data centers across the country — and the once little-known Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is sitting right at the center of it all.
“This FERC is not the old sleepy agency that it has been in the past, and we can’t afford to be,” FERC Chair Laura Swett told POLITICO in an exclusive interview June 18 at the independent regulator’s Washington headquarters.
Swett spoke to us just hours after federal regulators took major steps toward speeding interconnections by ordering six regional grid operators to either justify, or reform, their rules for data centers and other large energy users that are hoping to connect quickly to U.S. power grids.
The closely tracked action followed prompting last year by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, but it stopped short of asserting federal dominance over a process traditionally left to state regulators. Instead, FERC opted to examine the region-specific market rules already in place, while also proposing further reforms.
