On August 28, nuclear startup Oklo filed an emergency complaint at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (docket EL26-101), asking the commission to order regional grid operator PJM to put its 750 MW generation project back into the current interconnection study cycle with its original queue position. Oklo asked FERC to respond by September 4. The value of this fight is not its size — it is what it exposes about interconnection in the AI data center era: the queue is slow, the rules are old, and compute is expanding on a monthly clock.
A 750 MW Mixed Plant, and a Withdrawn Application
The disputed project, C01-1735, is one of more than 700 applications in the first cycle of PJM’s reformed queue: 150 MW of advanced nuclear, 300 MW of fuel cells, and 300 MW of natural gas. The nuclear and gas units are synchronous machines; the fuel cells connect through inverters — a combination grid rules were never designed to evaluate. On August 3, PJM withdrew the application. The complaint redacts the customer and location, but a footnote referencing a “PJM / Dominion / Oklo Power” kickoff meeting points toward Virginia’s data center corridor. Utility Dive notes the project’s outline matches Oklo’s planned 1.2 GW power campus in Pike County, Ohio — Oklo signed a nuclear supply deal with Meta in January 2026, though the two transactions are separate in the filings. American Buildout also catalogues Oklo’s federal track record: two DOE Reactor Pilot Program selections, advanced talks under a surplus plutonium program, and an Air Force notice of intent for a microreactor at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska.
The Process Fight: Late Deficiencies, Sudden Withdrawal
Oklo’s timeline: all required materials submitted April 27; a PJM deficiency notice on May 15 listing six issue categories with a 10-business-day window; on June 24, five new PJM comments posted to the portal — 41 business days past that deadline, with no email alert and a declined scoping call — which Oklo says violated PJM’s tariff requirements to flag deficiencies promptly; then withdrawal on August 3, citing model discrepancies, a missing dynamic-model report, and a failed full-plant stability simulation. Oklo’s rebuttal: the “momentary cessation” issue in the fuel cell inverters was fixed and passed unit testing, yet PJM used it to fail the whole plant — and no facility-wide ride-through requirement exists in the tariff or the guidelines. Oklo calls the withdrawal “the capstone to an unjust, unreasonable, and unduly discriminatory review process,” and estimates that missing this cycle means at least 14 more months of deposits, site control, and carrying costs. The filing calls the project one “of critical national importance,” needed to address PJM’s regional supply crunch. PJM spokesman Jeffrey Shields declined to comment on the individual case, noting that nearly 90% of 811 new service requests met the requirements for the latest cycle.
Why Data Center Watchers Care
On August 3, PJM accepted 715 projects totaling more than 200 GW into its first reformed cycle — 17.3 GW of it nuclear, with reviews expected to take one to two years. AI data centers plan power in years, and the queue can stall a project before it starts. The Oklo case matters because it puts the collision between AI load growth and grid queues squarely in front of FERC: the complaint demands reinstatement by September 21 and a Phase 1 study start on September 28 — a schedule measured in weeks, aimed at a process measured in years. Whoever is behind the redacted offtaker, the pattern is familiar from Pike County to Virginia: hyperscalers are underwriting nuclear campuses because the alternative is waiting in line.
Mixed Plants Are Testing the Rules’ Limits
The outcome will tell every developer whether bundling clean baseload with dispatchable capacity into one project is smart packaging or procedural self-destruction. Stability modeling for mixed synchronous and inverter resources, ride-through requirements, and review milestones all need explicit answers from the rule-makers — PJM’s own process was not built to judge a plant that is one-third nuclear, one-third fuel cells, and one-third gas. For utilities and data center developers hunting power for AI loads, how FERC handles this complaint in September will answer one question more directly than any white paper: can grid queues keep up with compute?
Sources
- PJM drops Oklo advanced nuclear project from interconnection study cycle — Utility Dive
- Oklo asks feds to fast-track secret project — American Buildout
AI-assisted summary compiled from the sources above, reviewed by a human before publishing.