Good morning.
Forty-seven billion dollars moved through data center infrastructure transactions this week. Brookfield acquired Aypa Power from Blackstone for $7 billion, gaining 6.5 GW of operating and contracted storage and a 20 GW-plus pipeline. GIP, MGX, and AIP closed the $40 billion Aligned Data Centers acquisition with a further $5 billion committed for expansion. And Submer's Rubix proposed a $12 billion, 2 GW campus at a former AK Steel brownfield in Kentucky with no power source secured.
That last item is the tell. Capital is abundant. Interconnection rights, contracted power at the site level, and local political clearance are not. The Kentucky campus means nothing until an interconnection request is actually filed and a study clears. The Aligned expansion budget means aggressive queue pressure at every existing Aligned site within months. And Charlotte's 150-day data center moratorium, triggered by American Tower's Reedy Creek project, is now the template more than a hundred local governments are running.
Today's issue also covers four data center projects in Petersburg, Virginia revealed through FOIA documents, only one of which cleared by-right under existing zoning. Maine launched its first competitive storage solicitation seeking 360 MW of BESS in ISO-NE. And FERC denied a Michigan municipal utility's late entry correction into MISO's capacity auction, leaving them holding duplicative capacity at a price they cannot recover.
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The Morning Read