The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has ordered all six of the nation’s regional grid operators to either defend their existing rules for connecting large electric loads to the transmission system or propose reforms, a sweeping regulatory action with direct implications for the growing wave of high-powered commercial EV charging hubs seeking grid access.
Six orders, one deadline
On June 18, 2026, FERC took highly anticipated action to facilitate access by large loads, such as AI data centers and manufacturers, to the electric grid, while protecting other customers from costs caused by those loads.
The agency issued show cause orders to each of the six RTOs and ISOs and their transmission owners, directing them to justify how their existing tariffs provide for the interconnection of large and co-located loads or to propose revisions.
The six orders were directed at PJM Interconnection, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, the Southwest Power Pool, the California Independent System Operator, ISO New England, and the New York Independent System Operator, together with their transmission owners. Together, these regions cover nearly two-thirds of load subject to Commission-jurisdictional rates across the country.
Under the orders, each RTO and its transmission-owning members have 60 days to either justify why their current tariffs remain just and reasonable without provisions tailored to large loads or to file tariff changes that address the issues FERC identified.
Additionally, within 30 days, each RTO and its transmission owners must submit a detailed informational report describing how the grid operator intends to ensure that adequate generation will be available to serve existing and new large loads.
Why EV charging is caught in the crossfire
The DOE framework that preceded these orders offered principles for facilities of 20 megawatts or greater, recommending standardizing study deposits, studying load concurrently with generation, and assigning 100 percent of network upgrade costs to the interconnecting load. That threshold covers not just data centers but commercial EV fleet depots and fast-charging campuses at scale, which increasingly draw power at that level once multiple high-power dispensers operate simultaneously.
Utilities and charging operators have warned for years that interconnection timelines and cost-allocation rules designed for an older industrial era are ill-suited to the speed at which charging infrastructure is being deployed.
A DOE-supported EV load forecasting guide published earlier this year flagged interconnection planning as one of the central bottlenecks utilities must resolve to avoid grid constraints appearing faster than infrastructure can respond.
FERC has repeatedly expressed that how the transmission system is studied, planned, expanded, and operated is critical to the United States winning the AI race and onshoring manufacturing, two priorities that share grid access queues with large EV charging projects and frequently crowd them out.
Cost allocation at the center of the dispute
One of the sharpest issues FERC put before the grid operators is who pays when a new large load triggers transmission upgrades.
The DOE framework recommended, for facilities of 20 megawatts or greater, standardizing study deposits, studying load concurrently with generation, and assigning 100 percent of network upgrade costs to the interconnecting load.
That cost-assignment principle is already surfacing in state-level proceedings. A Senate bill introduced earlier this year would write a similar requirement into federal law, mandating that large electricity users bear the full cost of grid upgrades their connections require rather than spreading those costs across the existing ratepayer base.
The June orders build on a series of Commission actions over the past year, including a December 2025 order directing PJM to adopt transparent tariff rules for loads co-located with generation, and the Commission’s approval of SPP’s High Impact Large Load initiative establishing new study processes for large loads and electrically proximate generation.
Broader context: load growth is accelerating
On October 23, 2025, the Secretary of Energy, acting under Section 403 of the Department of Energy Organization Act, directed FERC to consider an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking focused on the timely and orderly interconnection of large loads to the interstate transmission system.
FERC subsequently opened a rulemaking docket, accumulating an administrative record of over 3,500 pages of comments from nearly 175 industry stakeholders and interested parties.
The five-year forecast of US utility peak load growth has increased sixfold, from 24 GW to 166 GW, over the past three years, a surge driven by data centers, manufacturing reshoring, and transport electrification arriving simultaneously.
FERC chose to proceed through individualized show cause proceedings rather than a notice-and-comment rulemaking, reasoning that this approach would be faster than a traditional rulemaking and would allow solutions tailored to each region’s specific circumstances, market constructs, and the progress each RTO/ISO has made toward addressing large load integration.
The outcomes will set the cost and timeline framework under which the next generation of large EV charging depots, industrial campuses, and AI-driven facilities gain access to the US transmission system. The full text of FERC’s orders is available at the FERC official announcement.
