North American Electric Reliability Corp. stakeholders approved new reliability standards for AI data centers, crypto mining facilities and other computational loads — an important step toward finalization, the grid watchdog said Thursday.
The standards now head to the NERC Board of Trustees for a vote, and, if adopted, will be filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for final approval.
The proposed standards build on insights and research related to a Level 3 alert NERC issued in May after several incidents where data centers unexpectedly dropped load or oscillated demand rapidly, threatening the stability of regional grids. The alert included seven actions grid entities “must implement to address immediate risks posed by computational loads” while permanent rules are created, NERC said.
The new standards aim to “establish requirements to support the reliable integration of large computational loads into the bulk power system,” the reliability organization said in a statement.
Electricity demand is increasing after decades of stagnant growth, with data centers, in particular, driving load projections. Summer peak demand across the bulk power system is forecast to grow by 224 GW over the next 10 years, a 24% increase from 2025 peak demand, NERC said in January.
“These loads are reshaping the demand profile and exposing reliability gaps in both operational and planning time horizons,” NERC said on its standards development project site.
Multiple standards for computational loads were developed as part of NERC Project 2026-02, including requirements around interconnection studies and modeling; operational data and communications; and load protection coordination and disturbance monitoring.
Among other requirements, the standards establish modeling data, verification, and reporting procedures “for development of planning horizon cases necessary to support analysis of the reliability of the interconnected transmission system.”
They are designed to ensure transmission operators, balancing authorities and reliability coordinators have computational load site data needed “to plan, monitor, and assess the reliable operation” of the bulk power system, and to establish communication capabilities “with predefined communications protocols to ensure prompt action to prevent or mitigate occurrences that adversely impact the reliability of the Bulk Power System.”
The standards would apply to computational loads greater than or equal to 50 MW, connected at voltage levels greater than or equal to 100 kV.
NERC’s board is expected to consider the new standards in the fourth quarter, based on development timelines in the proposals.
