Grid Reliability, Retirements, and New Entry to Meet AI and Load Growth Leavebehind

This September 2025 leave-behind document was initially prepared for a meeting with the Department of Energy, responding to DOE’s July 2025 grid reliability report. It identifies five key challenges facing the electric grid: 

1. Premature plant retirements; 
2. Difficulty attracting new generation investment; 
3. Speculative data center interconnection requests; 
4. Untapped flexibility in AI/data center loads; and 
5. Fragmented regional resource adequacy assessments

LPPC proposes five corresponding reforms: 

1. Extending retirement study horizons to seven years with reformed Reliability Must Run contracts; 
2. Establishing new entry backstop mechanisms at all RTOs/ISOs; 
3. Implementing load screening for large customers; 
4. Integrating flexible AI/data center demand into reliability planning; and 
5. Directing FERC and NERC to conduct coordinated, wide-area resource adequacy assessments.

Read the report →