Economist Warns Data Center Interconnection Requests May Be Inflated
The power crunch may be smaller than the queues suggest, but still bigger than the grid can handle.
August 20, 2026 – The queue of data center interconnection requests flooding U.S. utilities is not a reliable measure of real demand, according to one economist.
Speaking on a fireside chat at the Technology Policy Institute’s Aspen Forum, UC Berkeley energy economist Severin Borenstein said data center developers routinely file duplicate interconnection requests across multiple utility territories without intending to build all of them, angling to secure a spot wherever power becomes available first.
