Since the notorious PG&E Metcalf Substation incident in 2013, physical security for utility remote assets has evolved to include leveraging new technologies that enable detection as well as protection. This changing landscape has moved from protecting against accidental faults to detecting and protecting against intentional physical and cyber-physical threats.
This evolution includes several dynamics, perhaps most profoundly the shift from a purely electromechanical infrastructure to modern, digitally-enabled, interconnected grid, and the NERC CIP regulatory push.
In this exclusive Energy Central PowerSession, utility security subject matter experts will share their experiences and insights that will result in more secure substations and ultimately a more secure grid. Topics to be covered include: vulnerability and security assessment fundamentals, ballistic and blast hardening, smart monitoring, retrofitting for a more secure future, and more.
We hope that you can join us for this interesting and engaging discussion with industry leaders.
Panelists (in alphabetical first name order)
Brent Warzocha, Vice President, 3B Protection
Chris Falta, Utilities Program Manager, Convergint Technologies
Two important activities precede successful energy related solutions: creation and decision.
Creation refers to potential solutions that can bring economic, financial, and reliability benefits to the contracting energy sources and their efficient use.
Decision is typically a management activity, analyzing advantages, disadvantages, and risks considering the company's business plan and all associated conditions. In this way, energy businesses are "structured projects."
They can be simple and cost-free or complex, involving significant allocations of time and/or financial resources. But, in my experience, this "format" has a greater chance of achieving and maintaining excellent results!
good point. I rarely saw a "simple" energy project, this is why I believe that management is still a key for any renewable project, the only way to solve complex challenges.
If you live in the 13-state plus District of Columbia footprint of PJM Interconnection, the country’s largest grid operator, you’ve probably gotten a dose of adrenaline—or pure anger—as you opened your electric bill over the last year.What you may not know is that many of those scarce dollars coming out of your wallet are going directly into the wallets of data center owner-operators. It’s a form of socialism, yes, but cleverly, for billionaire owners and wealthy shareholders, it works in reverse: privatize the profit, socialize the cost.
Slightly more fortunately, although the jury hasn’t yet been empaneled, some ratepayers and even entire communities are starting to catch on to the data center scam. From northern Virginia’s once bucolic Loudon County, already the data center “capital” of the country, to central Ohio, where dozens of unmarked data centers, enclosed in tall, black security fences and fortified gates line Interstate 270, local residents are figuring out that there’s a reason their electric bills have gone up 20, 30, and even 40 percent—and it’s not because they’re plugging in 50 more new devices. Or putting up Clark Griswold-worthy Christmas lights and running them 24/7/365. It’s because techbros and their developer minions are putting up power-hogging, “hyperscale” data centers that cost tens to hundreds of millions merely to interconnect to the grid, and then many millions more yearly for the electrons their endless racks of servers consume, adding to the cost of the massive cooling systems keeping them from melting. And we haven’t yet touched on the noise that all of this creates, orthe millions of gallons of water they demand, which is then not available to the local community, inevitably driving that cost up, as well.
Certainly not to the liking of data center developers and their techbro masters, communities around the country are waking up to the prospect that they, too, may see their quiet, green countrysides turned into a dystopian hellscape of monolithic white boxes, extending many football fields in length, directly adjacent to electrical substations, the latter often thinly-disguised by shrubs and trees that belie the humming switchgear and step-down transformers, still mostly in plan view. So even in NOVA, where these monsters are already well entrenched, to hundreds of miles away in the Buckeye state, movements are well underway to push back, including birthing legislation to use force of law to say “ENOUGH!” And those states join efforts in Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin, which have introduced moratorium bills or regulatory pauses, while local governments in dozens of cities and counties have enacted temporary freezes.
Coming from 30 years in corporate communications and public relations, after several years in the Marine Corps and U.S. State Department, I well understand how and why developers seek professional PR and public affairs help to talk to, and persuade their communities that data centers bring good things. But I am chagrined to see that even small, local PR firms are setting up “data center practices” to tout jobs, economic development, infrastructure improvements, a false and jingoistic appeal to "beat China” and “enhance national security,” and even bring environmental benefits. BENEFITS?
In reality, after construction ends there’s just a handful of permanent jobs; the tax breaks go only to the data center owners; new infrastructure will be paid for as always by taxpayers; and the jingoistic flag-waiving fades in the face of pollution, noise, increased electric bills; and reduced property values.
Currently, the majority of new data centers is going up in PJM Interconnection, the Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) which includes all or part of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia—65 million people over a footprint of 369,000 square miles. And those people are starting to figure out that these behemoths may not, after all, be ideal neighbors. Many of the governors of those states, too, have come to the same conclusion, or at least realized, as Maryland Governor Wes Moore has, that “There’s no clear plan by PJM to address both affordability and reliability,” referring to rapidly rising electric bills driven in large part by data centers, that PJM's leadership appears unable to manage.
And a number of independent organizations, including The Union of Concerned Scientists, have concluded that the unfettered rise of these electronic warehouses is costing ratepayers in PJM states billions, for transmission upgrades that benefit only data center owners.
Read more below, as E&E News tells us "Power prices in the nation’s largest grid market [PJM] jumped almost 76 percent in the first quarter year-over-year, showcasing how energy demand driven by data centers is remaking the economy across the mid-Atlantic and Midwest."
Wow, I had no idea PR firms were offering these specific packages to address community concerns. But as you point out, there have been so many legislative developments from states and local governments in the recent months and even weeks—I'm finding it hard to keep up!
It is deeply frustrating to see everyday households footing the bill for infrastructure upgrades that primarily benefit multi-billion-dollar tech giants. If hyperscale data centers are the ones creating this unprecedented demand on the PJM grid, shouldn’t they be the ones legally required to pay for 100% of the transmission and cooling infrastructure? It’s time to rethink regulatory policies before local families are entirely priced out of their basic utilities.
Most readers know that that “EVs” is probably an acronym for Electric Vehicles. Ditto BESS and Battery Energy Storage Systems. However, both of these markets need the same things: really big rechargeable batteries. A typical EV needs them so it can go long distances (preferably multiple hundreds of miles) without charging. A BESS needs them so it can help power a major load (ranging from a residence to a grid-segment) through multiple-hour peak demand periods. The synergy comes from using the same or similar batteries for each application.
1. Clean Energy Procurement Remains Strong — Driven By a More Concentrated Group of Buyers
2. Clean Power Technologies Have Become More Than Just a Sustainability Play
3. Market Expansion Is Top of Mind
4. Buyers Taking Action Are Bolstering Future Success
5. Monitoring PPA Performance Is Hard — But Doesn't Have To Be
ISO's like PJM know how to measure performance, it's what they are good at.
I continue to believe the Level 10 platform is a good fit for an Always On Capacity Exchange (AOCE) to acquire ALL required capacity, grid services needed for reliability over a capacity commitment period.
When a utility builds a 345-kilovolt substation to serve a single hyperscale data center, the question of cost recovery is not subtle: who should pay for an asset that serves one customer and would not exist but for that customer’s load?
The answer, in most well-structured data center agreements, is the data center customer. The mechanism for ensuring that result—cleanly, transparently, and in a way that regulators can review and ratepayers can understand—is a dedicated infrastructure rider.
Dedicated infrastructure riders are not new to utility rate design. They have been used for years to recover costs associated with large industrial facilities, military installations, and other special-purpose customers whose load requirements demand infrastructure that cannot be generalized across the rate base. What is new is the scale of data center load and the corresponding scale of the infrastructure investment that these agreements now require utilities to make.
What a Dedicated Infrastructure Rider Does
A dedicated infrastructure rider is a rate mechanism that isolates the cost of specific utility infrastructure—transmission lines, substations, protective relaying, switching equipment, and other capital investments—and assigns recovery of those costs directly to the customer or customers that necessitated the investment.
Unlike base rates, which pool infrastructure costs across all customers in a rate class, a dedicated rider creates a separate cost recovery stream tied to a specific asset or set of assets. The customer subject to the rider pays for the infrastructure through a charge that appears on their bill alongside their energy and demand charges from the applicable tariff.
The rider charge is typically calculated to recover:
The carrying cost of the dedicated infrastructure investment (return on rate base)
Depreciation expense over the useful life of the assets
Operating and maintenance expenses associated with the dedicated facilities
Property taxes and other direct costs attributable to the dedicated assets
The core principle: A dedicated infrastructure rider ensures that ratepayers who do not benefit from a capital investment do not pay for it. The customer who required the investment pays for it directly, in full, over the life of the assets.
Why Riders Are More Equitable Than Rate Base Socialization
The alternative to a dedicated rider is to put data center infrastructure into the utility’s general rate base and recover the costs from all ratepayers through base rates. This approach is simpler from an administrative standpoint, but it raises a fundamental equity problem: residential and small commercial customers who receive no benefit from a data center substation would be paying for it alongside the data center customer.
Rate base socialization made more sense in an era when large industrial loads created genuine system-wide benefits—when new factories required infrastructure upgrades that improved reliability for surrounding communities, or when large-load customers helped fund transmission investments that reduced costs for everyone. The argument that data center load produces system-wide benefits of that kind is much harder to sustain. A hyperscale facility that requires a dedicated transmission feed does not generally improve reliability or reduce costs for nearby residential customers.
Regulators are increasingly unwilling to approve rate base socialization of data center infrastructure costs without a compelling showing that general ratepayers benefit. Dedicated riders satisfy this concern directly by segregating the cost from the general rate base and assigning it to the benefiting customer.
Structuring the Rider: Key Design Choices
Asset Scope
The rider should specify precisely which assets are included. Dedicated transmission lines, dedicated substation equipment, and switching infrastructure built specifically for the data center should clearly be within scope. The harder question is how to treat shared infrastructure that was upgraded to accommodate data center load—a transmission line that was already planned but accelerated or oversized because of the data center, for example. Best practice is to include only the incremental cost of the upgrade attributable to the data center, not the full cost of shared facilities.
Rate Base Treatment vs. Pass-Through
Riders can be structured as rate base additions (where the utility earns a return on the dedicated investment) or as direct pass-throughs (where costs are recovered dollar-for-dollar without a return component). Rate base treatment is more common for long-lived capital assets like substations. Pass-through treatment may be appropriate for operating costs or for short-term construction-period carrying charges.
Term and Adjustment Mechanisms
The rider term should align with the useful life of the dedicated assets and the term of the underlying service agreement. A 20-year substation investment should not be assigned to a customer under a 5-year agreement without adequate security provisions. Riders should also include annual adjustment mechanisms that allow the charge to be updated as actual costs are incurred, preventing over- or under-recovery from accumulating over time.
Relationship to the Service Agreement
The dedicated rider should be explicitly cross-referenced in the service agreement and vice versa. The service agreement should specify the conditions under which the rider applies, the treatment of rider obligations upon early termination, and the effect of assignment or change of control on the rider charge. See our article on Six Provisions Every Data Center Developer Agreement Should Include for more on the contractual framework.
Pending FERC Action on Large-Load Interconnection
FERC is expected to issue a ruling in June 2026 establishing a federal framework for connecting large electricity users — including data centers exceeding approximately 20 MW — directly to the transmission grid. The proceeding (Docket RM26-4-000, Interconnection of Large Loads to the Interstate Transmission System) is expected to address standardized interconnection study requirements, deposit and readiness standards, network upgrade cost allocation, and the boundary between FERC-jurisdictional transmission matters and state authority over retail service and distribution.
The content in this article reflects current practice under existing tariff structures. Readers should monitor the June 2026 FERC order for requirements that may affect how utilities structure agreements, assign infrastructure costs, and design rates for large transmission-connected loads. This page will be updated following the ruling.
Regulatory Treatment and Approval
Dedicated infrastructure riders typically require regulatory approval in jurisdictions where rates are subject to commission oversight. The approval process generally involves demonstrating that the infrastructure is genuinely dedicated to the customer, that the costs are reasonable, and that the rider structure adequately protects general ratepayers from cost exposure if the data center customer fails to perform.
Regulators reviewing rider proposals will look closely at several factors:
Whether the infrastructure truly serves only the data center customer or has broader system benefits
Whether the cost recovery term and structure match the expected life of the assets
Whether adequate security provisions exist to protect ratepayers if the data center exits the agreement
Whether the rider charge is calculated correctly and will produce neither over- nor under-recovery
Some commissions have approved riders with explicit stranded cost provisions—mechanisms that accelerate cost recovery if the data center exits early, funded by the early termination fee or security deposit described in the service agreement. This layered approach, combining a well-structured rider with adequate contract protections, provides the most complete ratepayer protection.
Accounting Implications
The accounting treatment of dedicated infrastructure and the associated rider recovery depends on whether the assets are classified as rate base investments under ASC 980 (Regulated Operations) or treated differently based on the nature of the arrangement. Utilities should ensure that dedicated infrastructure assets are properly capitalized and depreciated in accordance with their regulatory treatment, and that rider revenue is recognized in a manner consistent with the underlying cost recovery pattern.
Where infrastructure costs are recovered through contributions in aid of construction rather than a rider, the accounting treatment shifts significantly—CIAC reduces the cost basis of the asset rather than creating a separate revenue stream. The choice between CIAC and rider treatment has implications for rate base, depreciation, and income tax treatment that utility accountants and rate professionals need to coordinate carefully.
The Alternative: When Riders Are Not the Right Tool
Dedicated infrastructure riders are not the right mechanism for every data center cost recovery situation. Where infrastructure serves multiple customers or has genuine system-wide value, inclusion in general rate base with standard cost-of-service recovery may be more appropriate. Where the data center customer pays CIAC that fully offsets the infrastructure investment, the rider may be unnecessary or reduced in scope.
The selection of cost recovery mechanism should follow the cost causation principle: whoever causes a cost to be incurred should bear that cost. Riders are the cleanest expression of cost causation for dedicated single-customer infrastructure. Where cost causation is shared, the recovery mechanism should reflect that sharing.
Russ Hissom, CPA is a principal of UtilityEducation.com, an online training platform offering certified continuing education courses in accounting, rates, construction accounting, financial analysis, management and artificial intelligence applications for utilities.
Energy production via hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) is essential to reducing the impacts of electric energy production on climate change. HVO is a renewable substitute for diesel fuel produced by treating waste vegetable oils, plant-based oils, and animal fats with hydrogen gas at high temperatures and pressures. The primary advantage is reduced carbon dioxide (CO2) production compared to burning other fuel sources. When the goal is optimizing CO2 emissions, HVO can be used in tandem with a variety of other energy production sources to significantly reduce the CO2 emissions of today while still meeting peak electricity demands.
HVO production provides the opportunity for cross-industry collaboration and repurposing of old infrastructure, which will also increase employment opportunities that cannot be replaced with AI. Another benefit of HVO is optimized long term energy storage, which will reduce the number of new solar panels, wind turbine generators, and storage batteries that are needed.
This article outlines the benefits of implementing hydrotreated vegetable oil into the United States’ energy production portfolio so that future energy needs can be met while reducing the CO2 emissions of today.
CO2 Emissions and Energy Production by Source
CO2 emissions vary with the technology used to produce energy. When burned, waste-based HVO produces a small amount per KWH (kilowatt hour). Plant-based HVO produces more CO2 emissions per KWH, but less than other fuels. Coal produces far more CO2 emissions than any other fuel.
CO2 emissions per KWH are listed in Table 1 for a variety of energy production sources. Values for solar panels, wind turbines, etc., include emissions during manufacture, installation, transportation, and maintenance.
Table with a yellow header lists CO2 emissions per KWH a for a variety of energy production sources, including solar panels, wind turbines, nuclear, HVO, and several fossil fuels.
Optimizing Energy Production and CO2 Emissions
Electric utilities build systems to supply energy to every consumer during peak load conditions. Traditionally, the energy production sources listed in Table 1 were operated on a least cost basis. However, when considering the impact of electric energy production on CO2 emissions, other factors besides cost must be considered.
To reduce emissions, a variety of alternate energy production strategies can be used. Traditional CO2 emissions can mostly be attributed to the burning of fossil fuels for energy production. Energy production designed to produce minimal CO2 emissions would exclude gas and HVO production, relying primarily on solar, wind, and storage batteries. Optimized CO2 emissions, the ideal strategy for energy production, includes energy from all sources, at amounts that will limit CO2 emissions while producing enough energy to meet peak load demands. Three examples are illustrated in Table 2 for a grid with a peak load of 44,000 MW (megawatts). When emission goals are optimized, the quantity of energy production facilities can be similarly honed.
Table with a yellow header and color coded columns outlining the megawatt hours produced via traditional CO2 emission standards (red), minimal CO2 standards (green), and optimized CO2 standards (blue).
As solar panels and wind turbine generators are intermittent production sources, energy must be stored for use during nighttime and during low wind hours. When batteries are used to store energy, additional solar panels and wind turbine generators are needed to recharge batteries. Prescient’s analysis reveals that twice as many of energy production facilities (172,000 MW) are needed to supply 825,000 MWH of energy on a peak load day when emissions are minimized, while only 89,000 MW of energy production facilities are needed when emissions are optimized.
Daily CO2 Emissions
Calculating daily CO2 emissions is challenging because both emissions and energy consumption vary continuously. A good estimate can be developed by multiplying hourly KWH consumption and hourly CO2 emissions and adding the totals. The results of these calculations are presented in Table 3 for a peak load day in August and in Table 4 for a low load day in April. Table 4 includes a line item titled “Uncaptured Renewables,” which is the renewable energy that could be produced in April and stored for future use.
Table with a yellow header and color coded columns comparing peak megawatt hour production and CO2 emissions for traditional CO2 emission standards (red), minimal CO2 standards (green), and optimized CO2 standards (blue).
Table with a yellow header and color coded columns comparing low megawatt hour production and CO2 emissions for traditional CO2 emission standards (red), minimal CO2 standards (green), and optimized CO2 standards (blue).
On a yearly basis, HVO can reduce CO2 emissions by 66%, while relying on solar, wind, and batteries can reduce CO2 emissions by 94%. The tradeoff is that relying on solar, wind, and batteries will require many new transmission lines, substations, and other investments in the electric energy grid, while HVO requires minimal new investments.
Meeting Peak Electric Demand with Optimized CO2 Emissions
Coincident peak electricity demand for the contiguous United States reached a high of 759,180 MW on July 29, 2025. To meet this peak demand with a goal of optimized CO2 emissions, the number of energy production facilities can be significantly reduced when compared to those needed for minimal CO2 emissions. This is illustrated in Table 5.
Table with a yellow header and color coded columns describes energy production in megawatts for minimal CO2 standards (green) and optimized CO2 standards (blue).
However, there is concern that the amount of HVO needed for optimized CO2 emissions is equal to 450% of the vegetable oil that would be produced by crushing the entire 2024 harvest, outlined below. Increasing yields, for example, from 50 bushels of soybeans to 75 bushels per acre, or doubling the acreage that is planted, will be needed to achieve the optimized emission goals. In addition, plant-based HVO can be supplemented with green diesel produced using animal tallow, and methane from regional landfills and cow manure digesters.
HVO production creates a new market for vegetable oil, which benefits farmers. In 2024, farmers in the United States produced 4.4 billion bushels of soybeans, 3.5 million tons of peanuts, 14.9 billion bushels of corn, and 4.8 billion pounds of canola. When crushed, 50% of the soybeans, peanuts, corn, and canola that were grown in 2024 could be converted to HVO and used to optimize CO2 emissions as outlined in Table 2.
New facilities will be needed for the production and storage of HVO. Tradespeople will benefit by constructing, operating, and maintaining mills, dry storage facilities, and oil storage facilities.
The repurposing of existing facilities will also provide construction and maintenance opportunities. For example, mills in Kansas and Nebraska can provide fuel for repurposed energy production facilities in Pennsylvania and Wyoming. Existing farm and rail facilities can be repurposed for creating and transporting HVO. The associated employment opportunities will require a human workforce, and therefore cannot be replaced by AI.
HVO As Energy Storage
When used for energy storage, HVO reduces the number of needed storage batteries. As most batteries are charged by solar panels, this also reduces the need for new solar panel installations. When used during a power outage as backup fuel, HVO is a more climate-friendly option than diesel and a more reliable option than solar powered batteries.
Solar panels will still be an important piece of the puzzle when optimizing CO2 emissions. However, when fewer new solar installations are needed to charge batteries, mining for lithium and other rare earth minerals can be reduced.
HVO Benefits Electric Utilities and the Climate
Hydrotreated vegetable oil is a more sustainable option for energy production than burning fossil fuels. When used in tandem with clean energy sources, HVO can provide more than enough energy for peak load days while significantly reducing CO2 emissions associated with energy production.
In addition, electric utilities will benefit as the need for new, costly, high voltage electric transmission lines will be significantly reduced. Consumers also benefit, as infrastructure costs are often passed on as rate increases. Development of new right of ways for transmission lines and pipelines will also be reduced, which reduces the need for deforestation.
In the race to reduce the most severe impacts of global climate change, HVO is a smart energy production opportunity across multiple industries.
Author’s Note:
Prescient’s team of subject matter experts independently researched electric utility load and operational data, marginal cost data; CO2 emissions, environmental factors (sunrise and sunset times, cloudiness, and wind speeds), harvest data, etc. and developed models that lead to the conclusions presented in this document.
The agency’s new Fusion Science and Technology Roadmap sets a lofty goal: reaching US commercial production by the mid-2030s (with the help of AI, advanced computing, and public-private collaboration). Already, there are plenty of dollars backing this dream: US fusion companies have received over $10B in private equity investments.
Ford has officially entered the grid-scale battery game. (Solar Power World)
Start your engines: In late 2025, the automaker announced plans to break into the ballooning BESS market by revamping a Kentucky manufacturing facility. Now, the newly unveiled Ford Energy is putting the pedal to the metal.
Ford Energy will sell BESS (made fully in-house) to US utilities, data centers, and large industrial and commercial customers. The company plans to roll out >20 GWh per year, and the first customer deliveries are slated for late 2027.
While we’re here: In 2025, global energy storage additions rose 48% to 112 GW (the first year to pass the 100-GW mark). China remains the undisputed heavyweight with a 54% market share, followed by the US at 16%
NatureClimateChange: "Current state of affairs." As climate change impacts are increasingly apparent, there are changes in society and the political landscape that need to be considered. Yes, yes, "heatwaves and record-breaking temperatures were in the headlines in May—South Asia experienced pre-monsoon high temperatures (up to 47°C = 118ºF in India), while Europe experienced peak summer temperatures before summer had officially arrived." But economic realities deserve attention as well.
"A recent synthesis report finds that macroeconomic effects are hard to quantify but are growing rapidly, with people in low- and lower-middle-income countries already 4–12% poorer in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita from temperature changes and sea-level rise, and projections of decreases in income for the average person [worldwide] of 3–15% by 2050." Numbers like this make the case for mitigation and adaption to minimize impacts, and it is important that governments act now to better prepare. "While nations all work on their own scale, international planning centres around the annual climate COP, held late in the year."
This year will see the first climate COP with 2 countries sharing responsibility of the presidency—Türkiye as the host nation, with the event being held in Antalya, and president-designate, while Australia takes the role of president of negotiations. "The nominated presidents have released a joint statement on their ambitions for the event, with a partnering of Australia with Pacific Island nations and the appointment of three Pacific Climate Envoys—these nations are at the forefront of climate impacts and the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) were the driving force in the shift in ambition from limiting warming to 2°C to 1.5°C in the Paris negotiations."
In the last several yrs climate folks have moved toward a consensus that since the annual carbon emissions have continued to rise, sadly but inarguably I think we have to start planning for at least 2ºC of warming. For which we ought to thank fossil fuels for this.
What is the potential for energy savings for your company?
This is the question that management should ask to stimulate managers and technicians in the search for answers.
This is the main motivation for concrete actions that bring significant results. The good news is: the probability of significant savings is high. Whether in contracting energy sources or in their efficient use.
The most important aspect is determination! This is because the tradition in Brazil is to "let things roll". But those companies that are focused on results, as my experience shows, achieve and maintain top-tier energy metrics.
[UPDATE Feb 26, 2025: The US Coast Guard has announced plans to create a "Trust Registry" (approved products list) containing products that are allowed to be installed on USCG digital ecosystems across IT and OT domains on land and sea]
"Notarization for iOS apps is a baseline review that applies to all apps, regardless of their distribution channel, focused on platform policies for security and privacy and to maintain device integrity. Through a combination of automated checks and human review, Notarization will help ensure apps are free of known malware, viruses, or other security threats, function as promised, and don’t expose users to egregious fraud."
Could Apple become the "Trust Anchor" for the "digital world of things" (DWOT™) where people will only buy "Apple Trusted Products" listed in a "Trust Registry"? Apple is a trusted brand; it's conceivable to me. Interesting times ahead for manufacturers of digital products supplying to the energy industry, like video surveillance cameras and other digital products, even other apps, such as Android apps, and inverters used by DER devices. Why not?
"A functioning society is built on trust. Whether we’re drinking water from a faucet, riding an elevator or sending an e-mail, we’re trusting that somebody, somewhere, has taken the necessary steps to make sure that activity is safe.
Yet today, our shared foundation of trust is under strain as never before. Rapid social and economic change, deepening political divisions, and the disruptive impact of new technologies are stretching the limits of traditional systems of trust-building.Governments, businesses and civil society are struggling to keep up.
Our changing digital age has made it harder and harder to know just whom to trust"
Perhaps, someday facilities managers in the Energy industry will only buy video surveillance cameras that have the "Apple Trusted Product" label which they can verify using a"Trust Registry". It appears Apple has some work to do, first.
You're probably wondering, how would a customer be able to verify that a product they download from anywhere on the Internet is in fact trustworthy or an "Apple Trusted Product". Here is how the process works using SAG-CTR™, but first, it's important to understand that every digital product has a unique product ID called a SHA-256 hash value, which can be calculated if you have access to the product software or a unique product name, like a PURL/SWID. SAG-CTR uses the SHA-256 hash value as a unique product ID for all "Trust Declarations" - this unique Product ID concept is key to making a "Trust Registry", and SAG-CTR work effectively.
1. The consumer downloads a software product from the Internet (iOS app) they want to buy and install to a local folder.
2. The consumer uses a simple, free script, to calculate the SHA-256 hash value for the downloaded software product, revealing its "ProductID" (the SHA-256 hash value). Some platforms have a built in command to display the SHA-256 hash value for a file, for example Linux has the sha256sum command that will reveal a SHA-256 hash value product ID for a software product or other software artifact.
4. The consumer examines the results returned to determine if the "ProductID" is an "Apple Trusted Product" and makes a buying decision, based on the results returned from the SAG-CTR™ query.
Sunny-side up: In May, solar contributed13% of the country’s electricity—for the first time ever. Meanwhile, coal sat around 12% (its fourth-lowest monthly contribution on record).
Oil drops: And as the Iran war drags on, the EIA estimates that the world’s oil consumption could fall by over 1M barrels per day from 2025.
While I am a supporter of renewables as a power source, and electricity is a much cleaner option than fossil fuels, unfortunately oil is used for diesel, pharmaceuticals and plastics. Some of these can be replaced, but some cannot, and this will imo cause a lot of damage to the global economy in critical areas like agriculture and medicine.
Over three decades managing upstream operations from the Caspian Sea to Latin America, I’ve learned a fundamental truth: geology proposes, but technology and investment dispose. No case illustrates this better than Venezuela’s historic reserves certification. From Undercount to World Leader.
For most of the 20th century, Venezuela’s proven reserves hovered between 7 and 9 billion barrels — a dramatic undercount that ignored the vast heavy crude deposits of the Orinoco Oil Belt, long classified as bitumen and excluded from global energy ledgers. That changed in 2005 with the Orinoco Magna Reserva Project. Dividing the Belt into 31 blocks and engaging 28 international companies from 21 countries, the project applied rigorous international standards to quantify this wealth. By 2010, Venezuela declared 300.878 billion barrels of proven reserves — surpassing Saudi Arabia and becoming the world’s largest reserve holder, endorsed by OPEC.
The Recovery Factor Debate
Behind the milestone lies a critical technical question. The project applied a recovery factor of 19–20% on an estimated 1,360 billion barrels of Original Oil in Place — far above the historical 4.1% estimate and widely criticized at the time. Today, advances in AI-driven reservoir modeling and heavy crude extraction technology have validated that threshold as technically achievable.
Paper Wealth vs. Reality
The real paradox is not geological — it’s institutional. Venezuela watched production collapse from 3 million bpd in 2005 to roughly 500,000 bpd by 2020, a direct result of underinvestment, brain drain, and institutional decay.
The crude remains there, intact. Venezuela’s challenge is no longer proving how much oil it holds — it’s rebuilding the political, financial, and operational conditions to bring it to surface. For the global energy community, the Orinoco Belt remains one of the most consequential untapped opportunities on the planet.
The drivers? You guessed it—AI and data centers. For 2027, the EIA forecasts a whopping 4,397B kWh in demand (up from a record 4,195B kWh in 2025). Renewables are set to meet an increasing chunk of that skyrocketing demand (reaching 27% in 2027), while coal use could continue to drop.
Plus, a spending surge: Equipment price inflation has propelled global grid capex to more than double since 2020, per a Rystad Energywhite paper. This year, it's projected to exceed $650B. Prices and delays will likely remain high for the time being, with two- to three-year lead times for transformers and high-voltage circuit breakers.
How it works: FERC has approved PJM’s temporary “Expedited Interconnection Track” for large capacity projects. Beginning July 31, PJM will considerup to 10 of these speedy requests per year for new or uprated capacity resources >250 MW. But they’ve got to be 1) “shovel-ready” i.e. prepared to launch within three years and 2) approved by a state’s “primary siting authority.”
The pushback: The proposal prompted backlash among everyone from clean energy trade groups to state officials to Vistra. The concerns? The process could favor utilities, exclude lower-capacity renewables, and delay PJM’s standard interconnection review.
What’s next: PJM may announce the first 10 selected projects in October, and the grid operator said it could take around 10 months to move from submission to an interconnection agreement. The process will expire in late 2027.
Meanwhile, Charles River Associates has issued an RFP on PJM’s behalf for its emergency backstop auction (responses are due July 21). The consulting firm is kicking off a matchmaking effort to link up supply and load participants—which hopefully won’t cause too much heartbreak.
The numbers:Around two-thirds of 809 planned data centers are headed for some of the country’s driest areas…where they would require loads of water to operate. That’s roughly equivalent to the ratio of data centers already operating in drought-stricken areas.
These include parts of Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott has outlined a plan to rein in the hyperscalers flocking to his state. His recommendations for Texas officials: 1) require developers to add generation and pay for electric infrastructure 2) repeal sales tax exemptions and 3) mandate annual electricity and water use reporting.
And another moratorium: Seattle just passed a one-year freeze on new data centers >20MW in order to gauge local impacts. If the bill gets the mayor’s signature, Seattle will join over 70 cities and counties with some form of data center ban.
A month after Fordannounced its foray into BESS, GM is following suit. The car maker is partnering with Peak Energy to build and deploy grid-scale sodium-ion batteries (a chemistry that has received plenty of buzz in recent months).
But wait, there’s more: GM also said it’s “integrating bidirectional capability as a foundational standard” across its portfolio. The company is currently testing the concept with utilities, including DTE and PG&E. By 2030, GM expects that over 52K of its EVs in Northern California will be “systematically participating in grid-balancing protocols.”
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