The rules that will govern how large data centers connect to the North American grid, and how they behave on it, have cleared their last industry vote. Two reliability standards drafted under NERC Project 2026-02 were approved by stakeholders in the final ballot, which NERC's timeline set for 9 to 14 October, Utility Dive reported on 15 October: CLO-001-1 on interconnection, studies and modeling data, and CLO-002-1 on operational data and communications. NERC's Board of Trustees is expected to take them up in the fourth quarter; adopted standards then go to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Fifty Megawatts at 100 kV
Both standards introduce a new kind of site, the Computational Load Site: buildings at one location that mainly house IT equipment for software services, AI training and deployment, cryptocurrency mining or other computing, fed through equipment connected to the bulk power system. They apply where such a site has a total connected load of 50 MW or more, supplied at 100 kV or higher through one or more points of connection. Its owner and its operator become two new functions in the NERC glossary.
The push came from the control rooms. In May NERC issued a Level 3 alert, listing seven actions grid entities had to take while permanent rules were written, after several events in which data centers dropped their load without warning or swung their demand up and down fast enough to threaten regional stability. NERC expects summer peak demand to rise by 224 GW over ten years, 24 % above 2025, mostly because of data centers.
What the Owner Has to Hand Over
Under CLO-001-1, transmission owners and distribution providers must write down their interconnection requirements for these sites, including how studies and commissioning are coordinated; a utility that has no such customer yet gets 45 calendar days from a signed study agreement to do it. Planners study each connection in steady state, short circuit and dynamics. The owner supplies the modeling data, and the standard sets the minimum: the parameters, settings and capabilities that govern cessation, tripping, ride-through and recovery after a disturbance, how much of the load is IT equipment, and what it is used for. It is refreshed at least every 13 calendar months and for the as-built site after commissioning. The owner must show that the model matches the installed equipment within 365 days of going into service, within 180 days of any hardware, software, firmware or setting change that alters the dynamic response, and at least every ten years after that.
CLO-002-1 is about real-time operation. Transmission operators, balancing authorities and reliability coordinators specify the data they need from each site, and the site has to deliver it. Its operator must follow every Operating Instruction from them unless it cannot physically be carried out or would breach safety, equipment, regulatory or statutory requirements, and has to say so when it cannot. It needs a working voice link to its balancing authority and transmission operator, and staff trained to repeat an oral instruction back during an emergency before acting on it.
Where the Standby Yard Comes In
Neither standard mentions generators. Read with a data center single-line diagram on the desk, though, they reach the standby plant within a page. When a large site ceases or trips during a grid disturbance, the UPS usually picks up the IT load and the transfer scheme hands it to the generator sets; seen from the substation, a block of load has vanished. The settings behind this used to be a matter between the electrical designer and the commissioning engineer. Under CLO-001-1 they become data the planner holds and checks, and changing one starts the verification clock again.
The operations standard leads to the same yard. At a site with standby sets, an instruction to cut demand may in practice be an instruction to start them, and the run hours in the air permit do not grow because the grid operator asked: PJM needed this week's DOE emergency order to go past them. Owners who keep the transfer settings, the commissioning test records and the permit limits in one file that the person on the phone to the grid operator can read will have an easier first audit.
Sources: Utility Dive, NERC, CLO-001-1 final draft, NERC, CLO-002-1 final draft