A delayed connection can leave a developer paying interest while rent waits. This fortnight’s Journal pieces follow that cost from contract terms to siting and equipment for energy-AI projects, starting with how delay risk is allocated and what a reserved megawatt costs.
In the Journal
How Data Center Deals Allocate Delay Risk
By Morgan Bazilian and Brandon N. Owens · Owens is Chief Executive Officer of AIxEnergy
Oct. 25, 29 min read
Utility tariffs may limit recourse, equipment contracts may cap damages, and a tenant lease can postpone rent, leaving developer equity to fund the gap. In the authors’ hypothetical 500 MW campus, an 18-month delay with an assumed $1 billion of private credit produces modeled carrying costs of $135 million to $250 million, estimates under stated assumptions rather than observed losses.
What a Megawatt Really Costs to Reserve
By Brandon N. Owens, Chief Executive Officer of AIxEnergy
First published Oct. 16; updated Nov. 2, 20 min read
In the article’s hypothetical 300 MW case, published rates imply $750 million to $1.58 billion in nominal minimum charges, with security posted separately. Annual minimums sit between $0.20 million and $0.27 million per MW, so contract length explains much of the total commitment; Duke remained a proposal in the November 2 update.
The Pause Belt
By Brandon N. Owens, Chief Executive Officer of AIxEnergy
Nov. 5, 11 min read
Local freezes can stop a site that looks viable in a grid study. The Journal’s geographic reading of its policy inventory clusters temporary pauses across the Midwest and into the Mid-Atlantic; the inventory counts instruments, not lost megawatts, and a pause is not the same as a permanent prohibition.
The Factory Queue Is the New Interconnection Queue: Who Gets the Transformer Slots
By Brandon N. Owens, Chief Executive Officer of AIxEnergy
Oct. 30, 16 min read
Published contractor ranges put large step-up transformers at 100 to 150 weeks or more before installation and commissioning. Factory slots are reserved through private agreements, so a place in an interconnection queue says little about whether the hardware has been secured.
Hyperscalers Are Buying Power Like Utilities, and Taking On Utility Risk
By Brandon N. Owens, Chief Executive Officer of AIxEnergy
Oct. 26, 11 min read · for paying members
October deals place different obligations on buyers: Google’s Constellation package includes fleet supply with no named plant for that portion, Indiana’s GenCo terms put dedicated facilities and cost overruns on the large customer, and Oracle offered to absorb nuclear costs otherwise borne by We Energies customers.
Speed-to-Power Deals and the Xcel Case in Colorado
By Brandon N. Owens, Chief Executive Officer of AIxEnergy
Oct. 28, 14 min read
Xcel’s custom-contract pathway would face a 120-day review and could depart from protections in the proposed standard tariff. One intervenor’s $29 million annual transmission shortfall reading at 2,000 MW is disputed, not a commission finding; the commercial question is which cost assignments survive the negotiation.
China’s Hold on the Acid That Etches AI Chips
By Maxwell Brown and Morgan Bazilian
Nov. 2, 17 min read
Japanese and South Korean firms purify high-grade hydrofluoric acid used to etch AI chips, but China mined 6 million of the world’s roughly 10 million tons of fluorspar in 2025. Korea’s domestic purification push left conversion dependent on China, so financing purification alone leaves upstream supply risk.
AI’s Future Runs Through the Grid
By Brandon N. Owens, Chief Executive Officer of AIxEnergy
Oct. 25, 11 min read
Annual clean-energy purchases do not prove a campus can run through a stressed hour. Reading the IEA’s Electrification report, the piece treats measurable, available demand reduction as the standard before counting computing flexibility as a grid resource.
Thanks for reading. If useful, pass it along, or send colleagues to aixenergy.io.
