December 4, 2025

Peter Cook, Editor

After taking Thanksgiving Week off, The Power Connection Digest is back!  And you’ll notice that we tweaked the name slightly (from The Permian Power Digest to The Power Connection Digest) to reflect our tendency to include some big news from the Marcellus and other basins as well.  And in accordance with our initial goals, we’re trying to keep the number of articles limited to 10-15 of the best analysis, news, and insights.  I think we nailed it on this issue!

As we announced in the last issue, the 2nd Annual Permian Power Conference has been moved up to June 8-9, 2026!  We’ll be back at the Midland Horseshoe Arena, and we’ll have the outdoor equipment again, but we’re making a few changes to improve the attendee experience and facilitate networking.  Registration and most sponsorship fees increase January 1, 2026, so be sure to sign up now to save some money.  Sponsor enhancements (available to our Title, Platinum, and Gold sponsors for no additional charge) are available on a first-come, first-serve basis.  Check out the website and contact Pete Cook (pete@the-power-connection.com) to learn more or to set up a sponsorship package.

And now, the news…

The Power Connection Digest Issue #34

Electricity is the new oil as Texas power deals top $100 billion so far this year

In the first three quarters of 2025, Texas-related deals in the power and utilities sector hit $106.5 billion. By comparison, the record-setting M&A year of 2021 saw eight P&U transactions totaling $3.7 billion.

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Texas Is Becoming the World’s AI Proving Ground — And Investors Still Don’t Understand the Land Play

Texas has become the world’s proving ground for the next decade of AI growth, and it is exposing a truth most investors still refuse to confront. The constraint is not capital or compute. It is land, power, and the fragile systems that tie them together.

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ERCOT proposing rule changes ahead of electricity demands

ERCOT is proposing new rules for large electronic load users (read: data centers). Those new rules include proof that the company owns the land. Another major change is if a company has a low rating, they will be required to pay $50,000 per megawatt.

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Data Center Titans Team Up for On-Site Power

The collaboration between Vertiv and Caterpillar is a clear sign of growing demand for on-site power to route around lengthy delays in grid connections.

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The Three Battlegrounds of U.S. AI Infrastructure: Interconnection, Water, and Local Politics

The bottlenecks that will determine where the next generation of colocation and edge facilities get built are no longer technical.

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Financial Times: Why energy traders are sceptical of the data centre build-out

If electricity demand shoots up, unmet by supply, a market watcher could expect futures prices to rise dramatically. But this isn’t happening.

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Trump Launches AI 'Manhattan Project': It Might Overwhelm the Power Grid

This country’s power generation sector can either get serious about building out the needed new thermal capacity or disaster will inevitably result again, because demand isn’t going to stop rising anytime soon.

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WSJ: Energy Secretary Says Data-Center Boom Will Drive Down Power Costs

Chris Wright says growth in electricity production to power AI will make electricity cheaper in the long run.

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The AI Gold Rush Is Redrawing America's Energy Map

Developers have increasingly given up confidence that utilities can meet their power and timeline demand and instead seek to build their own generation based on local natural resources.

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The Data Center Power Squeeze: Mapping the Real Limits of AI-Scale Growth

This deep dive maps the regions, tools, and hidden power corridors that will define AI growth over the next decade, and where operators must look next to secure their megawatts.

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2025's Texas Power Paradox: Balancing AI Demand, Renewable Headwinds, and Grid Resilience

Managing energy has shifted from a cost center to a critical operational and risk-management asset.

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Bitcoin miner Canaan plans adaptive green-energy mining platform

Canaan has been steadily investing in renewable energy projects, with a gas-to-computing pilot in Canada and a deal to deploy miners at a wind-powered data center in Texas.

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