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2026-11-067 min readutilities · power · alliant · aps · queues

Contracted Megawatts Are the Ones That Count

Alliant has 3.4 GW of data-center demand under contract and expects another 1 GW in six months. APS is writing collateral and exit fees for loads that never show. Announced MW is not spoken-for MW.

Every week another map shows tens of gigawatts of “planned” data-center load. Most of those megawatts will never show up on a utility’s contracted stack. A few already have. Learning to tell the difference is the whole underwriting problem.

Alliant Energy says it has 3.4 GW of data-center demand under contract, including Google, Meta and QTS, and expects to sign another 1 GW in the next six months. Three of five contracted projects are under construction. CEO Lisa Barton tied data centers to Alliant’s expectation for more than 60% contracted demand growth by 2031. The 2027–2030 capital plan rose 19%, to $15.9 billion (DCD).

Those are spoken-for megawatts. Treat them that way.

Utilities are done eating phantom load

Arizona Public Service filed its integrated resource plan on October 30. It projects peak demand above 14.5 GW by 2041, against a record of about 9.2 GW, with retail sales roughly doubling. Large industrial and data-center loads are the driver. APS plans 4,000 MW of gas through 2036, more solar and storage, and a longer life for Four Corners coal — out to 2038 instead of a 2031 retirement (Utility Dive).

The more interesting language is about risk. APS says sustained interest from large customers raises the potential for “unrealized loads.” Its answer: minimum demand and energy-based contract terms, collateral against default, and early exit fees. That is a utility saying it will not build generation for a LOI that walks.

Entergy is in the same movie. An amended Google contract in Arkansas is framed as saving ratepayers at least $500 million more than a prior $1.6 billion agreement, with Google putting $600 million toward batteries. The filing adds 350 MW of storage and 440 MW of Pattern Energy solar; the Arkansas PSC hears it in January. CEO Drew Marsh put data-center interest at 7 to 12 GW. In Louisiana, staff settled issues around generation for Meta’s Hyperion campus, with a vote due next month, and Entergy plans about $12.9 billion for seven combined-cycle plants totaling 5,278 MW (Utility Dive).

Interest is not a contract. Contracts with collateral are how utilities protect the other ratepayers.

Queues still do not tell you who is real

CAISO’s board advanced a large-load proposal it will file with FERC by November 16. Large loads could connect before network upgrades finish, in exchange for enforceable flexibility until the wires catch up. Participating transmission owners would study load interconnections on FERC’s 60-to-90-day clock (CAISO).

That is a process reform, not a public list of who gets power when. In PJM, FERC accepted the Large Load definition and registry effective October 12 and rejected the rest of the filing. The registry is not a public per-request queue. NYISO remains the only U.S. ISO with a public request-level large-load list.

So outside New York, wait times still have to be inferred from IRPs, earnings calls and contracted stacks like Alliant’s. Anyone selling you a “queue position” without a utility contract and collateral terms is selling you a place in line, not a megawatt.

How to read the next press release

Ask four questions before you update a model:

1. Is the megawatt number contracted, LOI’d, or announced interest?
2. Does the utility filing show minimum take, collateral and exit fees?
3. Is generation or transmission already in an approved capital plan?
4. What is the first year of ramp — not the marketing COD?

Alliant’s 3.4 GW clears most of those. A 12 GW “interest” number on an earnings call clears none of them.

Capital plans are the tell

When Alliant raises a multi-year capital plan 19% to $15.9 billion on the back of contracted data-center demand, it is telling equity and rating analysts that those megawatts are real enough to spend against. When APS extends coal and adds thousands of megawatts of gas while writing collateral into large-load practice, it is saying the same thing with more political friction attached.

Watch for the opposite tell too: utilities that quote enormous “interest” numbers on earnings calls without moving capex or without filing large-load tariffs. Those interest figures are useful as a map of where developers want to be. They are not a forecast of load. The industry’s bad habit of summing every MOU into a national demand chart is how we get fantasy gigawatts. Contracted stacks, funded capex and collateralized tariffs are how we get a build schedule.

What to watch

• Alliant’s next 1 GW of signed contracts and which customers win them.
• APS Corporation Commission reaction to Four Corners extension and large-load terms.
• Arkansas PSC hearing on the amended Google/Entergy package in January.
• Whether more IRPs copy APS-style collateral language for large loads.

Why it matters for builders, buyers and investors

Builders should stop counting pipeline maps as backlog. Buyers should prefer utilities that publish contracted stacks and large-load tariffs with teeth — those are the markets where power actually arrives. For $LNT and peer utilities, the market is learning to pay for contracted demand growth, not for LOI theater.

Not investment advice.

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