The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s binding April 16 commitment to act on Docket RM26-4-000 by the end of June 2026 puts the large-load interconnection rulemaking on the calendar this month, with the regularly scheduled June 18 open meeting the most likely venue. Under FERC’s seven-day Sunshine Notice rule, the agenda should be public no later than Wednesday, June 11.
The proceeding addresses how loads above 20 MW, the threshold that covers nearly every announced hyperscale AI campus, attach to the bulk transmission system. The Department of Energy initiated the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in October 2025. The April order framed the action as one that will be “quick, efficient and legally durable,” wording that points to a narrow first round rather than a sweeping rewrite, and signals the Commission intends to move from advance notice to commission action without an intermediate NOPR cycle.
Four areas are in play based on the docket record: jurisdictional clarity between FERC and the states on cost allocation, treatment of co-located load and generation, queue priority and timing for loads above the threshold, and a workable federal definition of “large load” itself. The PJM colocation order issued on December 18, 2025, already set a template on the co-location question, requiring PJM to file new firm and non-firm contract demand tariff services for co-located load on a January-to-February 2026 compliance schedule. PJM submitted its compliance filing by the February 16 deadline. The RM26-4-000 action would generalize the approach across all RTOs and ISOs.
The supply-chain read-through is straightforward. Data-center developers and utilities have spent the last eighteen months pricing in interconnection risk through bilateral PPAs and behind-the-meter generation arrangements. A uniform federal rule, if it lands clean, compresses the negotiation surface and shortens the time from contract signing to energization. The opposite outcome, a fragmented or punted decision, locks in the current pattern, where the marginal hyperscale gigawatt routes around the public grid through colocation deals or restart PPAs at existing nuclear plants. Either way, June 18 is the marker on the calendar.