IguanaBrief https://iguanabrief.com/ Industry briefs on power, tariffs, and who pays the invoice. en-us Tue, 13 Oct 2026 21:15:00 GMT https://iguanabrief.com/assets/IguanaXYZ-avatar.jpg IguanaBrief https://iguanabrief.com/ The backstop that was supposed to bill data centers didn’t run. https://iguanabrief.com/pjm-backstop-didnt-run/ https://iguanabrief.com/pjm-backstop-didnt-run/ Mon, 12 Oct 2026 16:30:00 GMT PJM PJM aims to refile by 29 Oct after a 22 Oct members meeting. FERC suspended the Reliability Backstop to 28 Feb 2027 over who pays; the 30 Sep auction never opened. PJM aims to refile by 29 Oct after a 22 Oct members meeting. FERC suspended the Reliability Backstop to 28 Feb 2027 over who pays; the 30 Sep auction never opened.

On 29 Sep 2026 FERC accepted PJM’s Reliability Backstop Procurement, then suspended it for five months to 28 Feb 2027, finding that cost allocation, LSE collateral, and Transmission Owner exit rules may be unjust and unreasonable. PJM did not open the 30 Sep–21 Oct offer window. The mechanism sold as making large load pay for the capacity it forces onto the system failed on the invoice.196 FERC ¶ 61,245

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]]> IguanaBrief card: PJM aims to refile by 29 Oct after a 22 Oct members meeting, with the Reliability Backstop timeline accepted then suspended Nvidia wrote a put. https://iguanabrief.com/nvidia-wrote-a-put/ https://iguanabrief.com/nvidia-wrote-a-put/ Mon, 05 Oct 2026 16:30:00 GMT Nvidia $105B isn’t a check. It’s a put. $105B isn’t a check. It’s a put.

Nvidia did not hand OpenAI $105 billion. On 17 Aug 2026 it signed residual value guaranties with SB Energy, the landlord building the PORTS-Pike campus in Pike County, Ohio, and capped what it could ever owe under them at $105B. OpenAI is the tenant. Nvidia pays only if OpenAI goes insolvent or stops paying rent, only after SB Energy has met the lease’s ready-for-service conditions (expected beginning in 2028), and only for the gap between a guaranteed value and whatever a new tenant or a sale brings back. That’s a put.Nvidia 8-K, 17 Aug

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]]> IguanaBrief card: $105B isn’t a check. It’s a put. With the check vs cap chart: $1.5B equity into SB Energy vs $108.5B maximum guarantee exposure California signed the protection. The tariff isn’t written. https://iguanabrief.com/sb-886-cpuc-data-center-tariff/ https://iguanabrief.com/sb-886-cpuc-data-center-tariff/ Mon, 28 Sep 2026 16:30:00 GMT California California signed the ratepayer protection. The tariff that assigns the dollars still isn’t written. California signed the ratepayer protection. The tariff that assigns the dollars still isn’t written.

On 21 Sep 2026 Governor Newsom signed SB 886 and AB 2383 — California’s Technology Innovation and Ratepayer Protection Act. Data centers are supposed to pay for their own transmission upgrades and incremental generation. The CPUC still has until 1 Jan 2028 to write the tariffs that make that real (the Act itself takes effect 1 Jan 2027). The law is ink. The invoice is the filing.Stoel Rives, 23 Sep

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]]> IguanaBrief card: California signed the ratepayer protection, with the SB 886 timeline from signing to the CPUC tariff deadline The pile is the tariff. https://iguanabrief.com/the-pile-is-the-tariff/ https://iguanabrief.com/the-pile-is-the-tariff/ Tue, 22 Sep 2026 17:00:00 GMT Copper They stacked the copper for a tariff that still isn’t written. They stacked the copper for a tariff that still isn’t written.

July put a flood of copper into the United States — 225,094 metric tons of refined metal and alloys, the highest month in Commerce records back to 1990. Comex warehouses now hold on the order of 697,000 tonnes, most of the world’s exchange-tracked copper. The refined copper tariff that would make that pile rational still isn’t written. On 10 Sep the White House stalled. The inventory is a bet on a law.

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]]> IguanaBrief card: They stacked the copper for a tariff that still isn’t written, with the July 2026 record 225,094-ton copper import figure The law said households wouldn’t pay. Florida’s about to test that. https://iguanabrief.com/florida-sb-484-duke-large-load/ https://iguanabrief.com/florida-sb-484-duke-large-load/ Sun, 20 Sep 2026 17:00:00 GMT Florida The law said households wouldn’t pay. Florida’s about to test that. The law said households wouldn’t pay. Florida’s about to test that.

Florida passed Senate Bill 484 so large loads cover their own power costs. The Duke Energy Florida large load tariff — the first filed under that law — still leaves a multi-billion gap between the cost to serve the first campuses and what existing rates would collect, and it still has no separate rate class. Public counsel says the proposal doesn’t even try to comply. That is the invoice.

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]]> IguanaBrief card: The law said households wouldn’t pay, with the Duke Energy Florida cost-to-serve versus minimum-bill gap chart Who pays for the watts https://iguanabrief.com/essays/who-pays-for-the-watts https://iguanabrief.com/essays/who-pays-for-the-watts Mon, 17 Aug 2026 17:00:00 GMT Watts Five hyperscalers will try to spend $660–690B in 2026. The grid is the invoice. Five hyperscalers will try to spend $660–690B in 2026. The grid is the invoice.

The industry didn't run out of money. It ran into the grid. Five companies are ready to spend like a national infrastructure program. The hard part isn't raising the cash. It's whether the watts show up.

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]]> IguanaBrief card: Five hyperscalers will try to spend $660–690B in 2026. The grid is the invoice.