On October 21, 2025, the grid reliability conference held by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) considered the issue of how to safely add data centers to the grid. [1] At the meeting, the North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC) president and CEO Jim Robb stated that although grid reliability in the US is strong, challenges are growing. He mentioned the increasing number of small scale events and near misses that reinforce the idea of a “five-alarm fire” when it comes to reliability. Robb suggested that grid reliability challenges entail dwindling resource adequacy, weakening reliability services, extreme weather, interdependency with natural gas, policies affecting resource and fuel development, and more. FERC Commissioner Judy Chang warned that the US faces potential imbalances between electricity supply and demand amid uncertainty about how much load may come online and how much generation and transmission will be required to manage it. The need for planning and accurate load forecasting to resolve these issues was a prominent topic throughout the conference.
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