FERC’s July Commission Meeting: NERC’s Data Center Reliability Deadline

Originally published for customers July 17, 2026.

What’s the issue?

FERC’s July meeting gave NERC a mandatory December 31 deadline for data center reliability standards, ordered CAISO and SPP to report on coordination at their Western seams, approved Leaf River’s 19.18 Bcf storage expansion, and expanded NEPA categorical exclusions for hydropower.

Why does it matter?

The reliability deadline is now mandatory, arriving as PJM sits roughly 7 GW short of its capacity requirement. Leaf River was the only certificate cleared this month.

What’s our view?

More gas projects are coming behind Leaf River. The NERC deadline mostly formalizes existing work, and the seams order gets ahead of problems using lessons from the East. The categorical exclusions save staff time for bigger projects.

FERC’s July 2026 Commission meeting produced a single gas certificate but several forward-looking reliability moves, headlined by a mandatory NERC data center reliability standards deadline of December 31, 2026. Below is what the Commission did on gas storage, its broader gas project pipeline, hydropower categorical exclusions, and Western grid coordination, and what each action signals. (For the prior month’s actions, see our recap of FERC’s June Commission Meeting.)

One Storage Certificate, and the Gas Projects Moving Behind It

FERC approved Leaf River Energy Center’s expansion of its New Home Salt Dome storage facility in Mississippi, adding 19.18 Bcf of working gas capacity. Commissioner LaCerte flagged the industry’s broader need for more storage, a point we agree with.

Leaf River was the only certificate item on the agenda, but more are coming. Our tracking shows roughly two dozen gas infrastructure projects moving through the Commission at various stages, shown below.

Sliced by scope, the projects needing a full environmental impact statement are generally over 50 miles long and above 1,000 Dth/d. The rest cluster much smaller, in both mileage and capacity.

That’s not a surprise. The depth of NEPA review generally scales with potential impact. It’s the same logic behind two hydropower categorical exclusion actions FERC voted out this meeting: one expanding an existing CE for minor-impact license terminations, the other adopting two of TVA’s CEs for small recreational and public-use development.

A categorical exclusion is not a way around NEPA analysis. It’s an efficiency tool. Once an agency has a track record showing a type of action doesn’t typically cause real environmental harm, it can rely on that record instead of writing a fresh EA or EIS every time. NEPA compliance still happens; it’s just built into the category instead of redone from scratch.

Expanding CEs, and routing more reviews through EAs where appropriate, point to a goal the Commissioners have stated plainly: concentrate staff resources on the projects with real impact, and spend less on the ones that don’t. That’s a sensible posture against a backdrop of recent retirements, a now-lifted hiring freeze, and regular attrition that all press on efficient resource allocation.

NERC Data Center Reliability Standards: A Mandatory December Deadline

FERC directed NERC, the industry group that develops Reliability Standards under Federal Power Act Section 215, to file new standards for computational loads like data centers and crypto mining, plus registry criteria to identify which loads qualify. Both are due December 31, 2026.

The deadline mostly formalizes a plan NERC had already floated in a separate DOE proceeding, now made a legal obligation instead of a voluntary one. Commissioner Rosner called the timeline aggressive but doable given NERC’s head start. Chairman Swett tied the urgency to PJM sitting roughly 7 GW short of its capacity requirement this cycle, with only 500 MW of new generation clearing the latest round — a shortfall we examined in PJM’s $11.8 Billion Reliability Bill. The pace of new capacity is the same pressure we tracked in Grid Reliability Shifts in 2026.

CAISO and SPP: A Western Seams Report by September 30

FERC also ordered CAISO and SPP to file a joint report by September 30, 2026 on how they are coordinating operations across their overlapping Western seams, aiming to get ahead of the kind of reactive fixes the East had to make. Chairman Swett clarified that there were no mandated outcomes at this stage, but that the Commission wanted visibility in case it could assist in the future.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did FERC decide about data center reliability at its July 2026 meeting?

FERC directed NERC to file mandatory reliability standards for computational loads, including data centers and crypto mining, along with registry criteria to identify which loads qualify. Both filings are due December 31, 2026.

What is the Leaf River storage expansion?

FERC approved a 19.18 Bcf expansion of working gas capacity at Leaf River Energy Center’s New Home Salt Dome storage facility in Mississippi. It was the only certificate on the July agenda.

What did FERC order CAISO and SPP to do?

FERC ordered CAISO and SPP to file a joint report by September 30, 2026 on how they coordinate operations across their overlapping Western seams. No outcomes were mandated at this stage.

What is a NEPA categorical exclusion?

A categorical exclusion is not a way around NEPA. It is an efficiency tool that lets an agency rely on an established record showing a class of actions does not typically cause real environmental harm, instead of writing a fresh review each time.

If you would like to discuss gas infrastructure timing, permitting reform, or grid reliability planning, please contact us.