PJM to study SoftBank's 10-GW Ohio data center complex under state agreement approach

PJM Interconnection intends to assess SoftBank Group's roughly 10-GW Flagship data center complex planned on federal land in Ohio, and the generation and transmission needed to serve it, under a state agreement approach, according to a study agreement filed Tuesday at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Utility Dive first reported the filing.

The agreement covers 9.6 GW of additional data center load and 10.2 GW of new gas-fired generation that SB Energy, a SoftBank company, would build in phases through 2032. AEP Ohio will serve an initial 800-MW phase under a data center tariff, and plans to build three 765-kV transmission lines and related infrastructure. Most of the complex, developed by SB Energy and other SoftBank affiliates, would be built at the Department of Energy's Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a former uranium enrichment facility in Pike County, Ohio, with some generation about 30 miles away.

The White House announced Flagship in mid-February as part of a $550 billion trade deal with Japan. That announcement included an estimated $33 billion for 9.2 GW of gas-fired generation for the project. The PJM study agreement puts SB Energy's new gas fleet at 10.2 GW, about a gigawatt above the announced figure.

Under PJM's state agreement approach, a state or group of states asks the grid operator to study specific projects needed to meet state policies, and projects built under the framework are paid for by consumers in the state that requested the agreement. With Flagship, SB Energy intends to pay for any generation and transmission infrastructure built to serve the data centers. PJM said SB Energy has committed to bringing new generation to support the project and paying for required power delivery infrastructure and network upgrades through arrangements designed to protect other customers from project-related costs, which PJM described as consistent with the Ratepayer Protection Pledge.

PJM noted in its filing that FERC has encouraged grid operators to integrate their studies of load and generation. "The Study Agreement provides a means for PJM to undertake such an integrated evaluation in response to Ohio's specific [State Agreement Approach] request while PJM continues development of a more formalized process to study requests of this nature," the grid operator said.

The structure splits the project's power supply into two tracks: an initial 800 MW under an AEP Ohio tariff, with the 9.6 GW of load and 10.2 GW of generation behind it covered by the sponsor commitments PJM described. The scale of the gas build behind a single complex is what separates this filing from the load-study requests that have become routine as data center developers queue up. Whether a sponsor-funded arrangement becomes the template for other large loads on the PJM system is the question the study process will not answer on its own.