Load Queue: Finding Power For Data Center Projects

Substations around the country serve as critical, yet increasingly strained nerve centers of an aging power grid, and with continuous dependencies on electrical power. Paired with a large demand from the digital economy, the American power landscape is set for massive shifts. With the rapid proliferation of data centers, energy consumption had reached an all time high in the face of a seemingly unprepared grid. The collision between a physical grid and a booming digital gold rush means that load interconnection queues serve to be gateways to stability and project due diligence. With power access becoming a top constraint in data center site selection, developers are shifting their focus from tracking generation queues to analyzing load queues to feed their gigawatt scale sized projects. 

The strain between different Independent System Operators (ISOs) and Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) mean that data center power requirements are large enough to cause responsive market shifts, and changes in the way developers want to think about their projects. 

This switch in site selection priorities has become the most direct way to assess grid congestion and analyze a site’s actual potential. Now, data center developers and large power users must navigate a market where power demand exceeds supply. LandGate’s exclusive coverage into load interconnection queues and offtake capacity, allow data center developers to navigate the market and better aid site selection, offering exhaustive solutions in a constrained market. 

LandGate Substation Coverage

Grid Overview: ISOs, Grid Trends, and Power Constraints

The North American power grid isn't one system but a diverse patchwork of regional grids, each with its own unique personality and set of challenges. In the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, PJM Interconnection is grappling with an unprecedented tsunami of demand from "Data Center Alley," leading to the longest and most congested interconnection queue in the country. With projections now staggering a 32 GW increase by the end of 2030, the next five years show a sharp rise in demand for data infrastructure driven projects.Contrast this with the sprawling MISO grid across the central U.S., which has an abundance of wind power but struggles with the massive transmission bottlenecks required to move that energy from the plains to population centers. This fundamental difference highlights a key truth: some regions are drowning in demand, while others are rich in supply but poor in the infrastructure needed to deliver it.

This regional diversity is the defining feature of today's grid landscape. California's CAISO is at the forefront of the renewable transition, managing a daily flood of solar power and the operational complexities of the "duck curve." Further east, ISO-NE faces unique fuel security risks due to its heavy reliance on natural gas during cold winter snaps. For any data center developer, the lesson is clear: site selection is now inseparable from grid selection. Success depends entirely on understanding the specific market rules, queue dynamics, and physical constraints of the regional grid a data center developer plans to call home.

Load Interconnection Queue From a Site Selector’s Standpoint

From a site selector's perspective, a load queue is the official waiting list for grid access. It’s maintained by the grid operator and tracks all major power consumers, including competing data centers, industrial plants, and EV charging hubs that have requested to connect to a specific substation. This provides a direct view of oversubscribed substations, allowing developers to instantly flag and avoid areas with multi-year delays. Developers are also able to gain insight into emerging market saturation and competitor strategy through analyzing the load interconnection queue, whether that be identifying other big players in the data center space or recognizing industrial demand within a specific area.

The story of the overloaded power grid is no longer confined to the “Data Center Alley” that is in Northern Virginia. Across North America, established data center giants are facing a critical inflection point where their success has saturated the local infrastructure. In markets like Chicago and Dallas, the grid is in a reactive scramble to keep up. In Chicago, the demand for new, high-density AI-ready facilities is colliding with a dense, aging urban grid, forcing the utility ComEd into a slow and costly process of "urban surgery" to create capacity. This has resulted in some of the nation's longest interconnection queue times. Meanwhile, a different trend is stressing the grid in Dallas, where massive hyperscale campuses continue to expand. This creates a constant battle for the grid operator, ERCOT, to manage transmission congestion, particularly in getting renewable energy from West Texas to the Dallas load center during brutal summer peaks. The common thread in these mature markets is a reactive scramble; the grid infrastructure is perpetually playing catch-up to the voracious, high-density power needs of modern data centers, forcing developers into a high-stakes waiting game for the multi-billion-dollar upgrades required to support their projects.

This growing divide between reactive and proactive markets is forcing a new calculus in data center site selection. The decision is no longer a simple trade-off between a dense fiber ecosystem and cheaper power. Developers now must weigh the immense risk and multi-year delays of entering a saturated market against the first-mover advantage of partnering with a municipality that has strategically prepared its grid for the future. The most successful development strategies of the coming decade will be defined not by finding a space on a crowded grid, but by identifying and securing a foothold in regions where the grid is being built for the demand of tomorrow.

LandGate’s coverage allows data center site selection to be a fairly standard process. By providing the maximum amount of data to inform decisions, data center developers have to take minimal steps to perform due diligence on their sites. LandGate’s load interconnection queue data offers exclusive insights into the grid and informs users of how much load each project is going to consume and when along with their point(s) of interconnection. In addition to this, the platform offers unique insights into other load types including but not limited to metals, mines, automotive industries, aerospace, manufacturing, biofuels, and semiconductors to further power availability, project timelines, financial viability, and site selection validation. 

Other Load Types, Substations: LandGate Coverage

The Future of a Power-Focused Strategy

A new wave of emerging hubs is winning projects by treating the grid not as a problem to be solved, but as an asset to be marketed. Cities like Columbus, Ohio, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Reno, Nevada, are attracting massive investment by demonstrating proactive grid readiness. In the Columbus region, utilities like AEP are collaborating with local authorities to create "certified shovel-ready sites," where the power capacity and transmission paths have been pre-vetted, effectively de-risking the interconnection process for developers. Likewise, in the mountain west, utilities like Rocky Mountain Power and NV Energy are making forward-looking investments, building out new transmission and substation capacity in anticipation of growth rather than in reaction to it. This strategic alignment between utilities and economic development agencies is their core advantage, offering developers what the hotspots cannot: a clear, predictable, and faster path to power.

With the growth of data center infrastructure and, in turn, grid constraints, the emphasis on a power-first approach is becoming more of a common practice. Being able to navigate load interconnection queues and identify optimal grid conditions has never been more important for a data center developer. Through gaining a grasp of the load interconnection queue, monitoring large queue loads, and navigating behind-the-meter power alternatives, data center developers can evaluate the feasibility of an interconnection in real-time. This is essential for making informed decisions, reducing project risk, and accelerating timelines in an increasingly competitive landscape. 

To access our Interconnection queue and data infrastructure data, book a demo with our dedicated energy & infrastructure team.