CPUC Pushes Its Vote on PG&E’s 250 MW Google Data Center Deal in San Jose to September 3
- Policy & Markets Regulatory State & Local Regulation
Marin Holt
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- 7 minutes read
- New retail load: 250 MW
- Service voltage: 230 kV
- Vote moved to: September 3, 2026
- Advice letter: PG&E 7785-E
California regulators delayed a vote on a 250 megawatt Google data center in San Jose. Pacific Gas and Electric asked to serve the load. The California Public Utilities Commission moved Resolution E-5455 off its August 13, 2026 voting meeting. The vote now sits on the September 3 agenda. The resolution would approve PG&E Advice Letter 7785-E, filed December 18, 2025. That letter asks the commission to approve an exceptional case agreement between PG&E and Google LLC. The agreement covers a new transmission level retail load of 250 MW at 230 kV.
What the Agreement Covers
PG&E filed the advice letter as an exceptional case. That label matters. It signals the utility could not fit the request inside its standard tariffs for large customers. The draft resolution approves the deal with modifications rather than as filed. Commission staff attached added ratepayer protections to the approval.
A single 250 MW customer sits five times above the threshold other states use to define a large load, and both Pennsylvania and New Jersey set that floor at 50 MW. California never set one. California has no equivalent standing tariff. So the deal arrived as a one-off advice letter, not a tariff election.
Why the Vote Slipped
The delay lands while a second proceeding is still open. The commission is separately weighing how to recover the cost of interconnecting large loads, and a ruling in that docket would set the rules this agreement must sit inside. Deciding the Google deal first would settle a precedent before the general rule exists.
Federal action adds a second complication. The FERC large load order has entered the PG&E transmission level tariff case. That forces the commission to ask how its own data center rules would fit a CAISO wide regime. The answer is not settled.
Why It Matters
Three weeks of delay is short. The precedent is not. California is deciding how a hyperscaler buys grid capacity. One advice letter at a time, or under a tariff that binds everyone? Utilities in 24 states already have an approved large load tariff. California still does not.
Watch the modifications rather than the vote count. The ratepayer protections that staff bolted onto this approval are the template every hyperscaler after Google will negotiate against. Staff drafted them for one customer. If they hold on September 3, they become California’s de facto large load terms before any tariff proceeding concludes.
Critical Perspective
PG&E wants to energize 250 MW for one customer, five times the 50 MW threshold Pennsylvania and New Jersey use to define a large load. What the delay does not address is ramp risk, the question of who covers fixed cost if the San Jose campus draws less than it contracted for. New Jersey answered that in its own data center bill with an 85 percent take-or-pay floor written into statute rather than negotiated customer by customer. If California approves the Google terms on September 3 while its interconnection cost docket is still open, which document governs the next hyperscaler that asks for 250 MW?
Sources
- CPUC, Draft Resolution E-5455 (PG&E Advice Letter 7785-E)
- California Regulatory, August 13, 2026 CPUC voting meeting results
- Stoel Rives, Energy Regulatory Update, August 12, 2026
- Stoel Rives, Energy Regulatory Update, August 5, 2026
