At the Energy Future Forum 2026 presented by RealClearPolitics, Peter Bryant and David Rosner, Commissioner at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, examine the structural gap between how fast the US can build generation and how long it takes to build the grid capacity to carry it.
Peter frames the problem with a number that captures the imbalance: the Sun Zia project in New Mexico – the largest renewable energy development in the US – took just three years to build 3.5 gigawatts of wind capacity. Permitting and constructing the 550-mile transmission line that connects it took a much longer 17 years. The Boardman to Hemingway line in the Rocky Mountain region required 21 years from permitting to completion.
Peter’s view is direct: this is intolerable, and permitting reform, including judicial reform with defined timelines, has to happen. The consequences of failing to act extend beyond delay. When the grid cannot be built fast enough, the push for behind-the-meter and distributed generation intensifies. That creates a real risk of stranded electrons: distributed systems that cannot connect to the grid are not a full system answer, and a smart grid approach that FERC can support at the federal level is needed to avoid a fragmented outcome.
Rosner does not wait for reform to simply arrive. He would implement any permitting and judicial reform that Congress passes, but absent legislation, FERC is using its existing statutory authority to work faster. The statutes the commission operates under are 80 to 100 years old and are, at their core, economic development instruments. One significant operational shift FERC has required of jurisdictional utilities is studying new generation and new load together rather than independently. When a data centre and a power plant are electrically close, joint modelling materially reduces the grid infrastructure needed to connect both. FERC has also created flexible interconnection services – non-firm connections that convert to firm as infrastructure is built out – so large customers can begin drawing power without waiting for the full build.
The interconnection queue remains the sharpest bottleneck. Connecting a new power plant currently takes four to five years on average. Rosner calls this unacceptable. MISO has cut its study timelines from 686 days to under ten days through cloud automation and has made the process fully transparent on its website. Rosner has written to utility CEOs across the country encouraging voluntary adoption, without waiting for FERC regulation to require it.
Cost allocation is progressing in parallel. Twenty US states now have large load tariff rules ensuring data centres carry the appropriate share of grid infrastructure costs, with nine more in progress. As of March 2026, 29 states are done or on track. The wholesale component of a Massachusetts electricity bill currently runs 38% above the equivalent in Washington DC, driven by years of underinvestment in infrastructure. FERC’s state of markets report identifies the most impactful action for improving affordability as building more energy infrastructure, paired with the regulatory accounting to ensure costs fall on the right users.
Rosner closes with a commitment to use AI and automation to accelerate environmental review and interconnection processing – aptly, applying the technology driving the demand surge to close the bottlenecks it has exposed.
Watch the whole conversation here.
