State of Grid Capacity — Q1 2026

Across the four largest US ISOs, available transmission capacity has tightened to multi-decade lows. PJM's 2025/26 Base Residual Auction print of $269.92/MW-day represents a >9x year-over-year capacity price increase and is the clearest market signal that the structural supply-demand balance has reversed.

MISO's LRTP Tranches 1 and 2 — combined ~$32B in transmission build-out — represent the largest single planning cycle in US history and are tracking against load growth that arrived faster than the planning cycle assumed.

Northern Virginia's data center load growth has effectively absorbed the deliverability headroom in the eastern PJM zones. New large load asks are facing 4–7 year energization realities even where utility marketing materials reference shorter timelines.

Behind-the-meter co-location with existing nuclear and gas assets has become the highest-velocity path to power for hyperscale workloads — and the FERC posture on those structures will set the next 24 months of dealflow architecture.

EV / battery / semiconductor announcements concentrated in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee are colliding with reserve margin compression in MISO South. The Definitive Planning Phase queue continues to skew heavily toward hybrid solar + storage configurations.

Seam dynamics with PJM and SPP are generating curtailment and basis risk pockets that materially affect PPA structuring.

Texas's HB 5066 / SB 6 framework introduces the first formal regulatory category for large flexible loads. Permian Basin transmission planning under the PUCT remains the most consequential infrastructure decision in the state's grid history.

Energy-only market design continues to produce the most active battery dispatch market in North America — the Performance Credit Mechanism debate is the open question for generator economics.