Billy Gamboa

Energy Investment and Development Technology Integration Energy Storage Policy/Regs Interconnection Big/Micro-Grids EV Charging

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

"hide yo wife, hide yo kids, hide yo husbands,
because they VPPA-ing everything out here"

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

@ramez AI race is just starting

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

As long as no one seriously make decision solely based on affordability than it’s simply a metric that tells you how hard a rate hits low income

yes other factors are massively more detrimental than the rate, housing being one of them, at least in California but also climate zone

the problem of focusing to hard on the rate arises when some politicians forgets the physics of finance and economics and when you don’t mind the structure of the utilit business

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

@paulg this shows AI is a great equalizer

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

@paulg i would be more worried about thos who scored any less than 90% on the take home test tbh

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

But to be fair

2000 to 2020

~2% to 2.5%/yr

2020 to 2026

~5% to 7%/yr - we really felt this

Long-term (1990s to today)

~3%/yr

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

We need to get this out to the masses

[Shanu Mathew @ShanuMathew93]

Surprise - another study finds no relationship between electricity price increases and data centers. That list includes includes LBNL, Brattle, Charles River, EPRI, Columbia, etc.

To be clear, there's a difference between historical relationship and go-forward dynamics but it's important to recognize the complicated relationship in electricity prices (system costs, large fixed price assets that need to be amortized).

Summary + I'll link the other studies below.

Claim: Historical data center growth has not translated into higher household power prices.

Evidence: States with more data center growth did not see larger rate hikes. Virginia looks normal; California’s spike is mostly wildfire/grid costs.

Cost-shift concern: The paper finds no evidence that data centers lowered C&I rates while pushing costs onto residential customers.

Causal estimate: A doubling of data center capacity is estimated to lower residential rates by ~4%.

Why: Large new load may spread fixed grid costs over more electricity sales, creating economies of scale.

Caveat: AI-era growth may be different because scale, speed, grid bottlenecks, and supply constraints are much more severe.

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

Make sure to tell them:

the long-term U.S. average is:

about 2.5% to 3.5% per year in nominal terms (not adjusted for inflation) over the last 20 to 30 years.

About 0% to 1.5% per year in real terms (after inflation), depending on the period you choose

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

@SlBrandin Should be an OSHA violation tbh

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

Badass

[Tomas Salvo @tomas_salvo22]

Since February, I've designed and built the world's fastest RC airplane in my college dorm, and that’s not clickbait. Reaper has a 5kg carbon-fiber frame, 250N turbojet, and flies at 500mph. New to X and will be going through the whole build here in the coming days.

#aerospace

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

i think your arguments against offgrid omit the real regulatory risk of connecting to the grid

there are multiple jurisdictions stacked on top of any one development that immediately disappear by choosing offgrid

moreover the collateral and credit requirements alone could legitimately push some developers/investors into offgrids warm embrace

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

@JaneAFlegal vibe policy-ing > vide coding

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

Worth noting how high the A-/A3 bar actually sits:

per Fitch (June 2026) the median parent holding company in the North American utility sector is rated BBB

and thats BELOW the A-/A3 that is demanded of a large load's guarantor.

the median utility parent wouldn't clear the bar these tariffs set for data center guarantors

[Aniruddh Mohan @aniruddh_mohan]

Big news from Wisconsin

A hyperscaler has sued v large load tariff demands (specifically high collaterals)

- As per new rules customers below A-/A3 credit rating must post huge collateral, in this case >$7B in security + >$100M in annual costs
- Oracle (1 GW Stargate in WI) argues few companies qualify, waiver flexibility was removed, costs are disproportionate, rule would push $$ out of WI
- Reminder that such tariff provisions are being developed for large loads with customer protection in mind, but are certainly unprecedented
- Big risks is utilities build out infrastructure for demand that never energizes, leaving existing ratepayers holding the bag
- Oracle is willing to put up letter of credit for $700M (10%)

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

the higher rating makes an already-small probability incrementally smaller, which marginally reduces how often the District's default remedies would ever need to be invoked. BUT A letter of credit from a BBB-rated developer pays exactly as one from an A-rated hyperscaler, and the District's default remedies operate identically in either case.

i would argue that the added margin is slight, while the exclusion it produces is sweeping

trimming an already-remote risk that the collateral fully covers does not justify foreclosing most of the investment-grade market

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

@aniruddh_mohan interesting indeed. not surprising didnt think we'd see a lawsuit though. was there a comment period on the large load tariff requirements i wonder and did antyone call this out

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

it was only a matter of time

and the liquidity requirements on top of the parent guarantees can be insane

imperial irrigation district here in California has a 10x liquidity requirement on the collateral requirement

and

the collateral requirement is 60 months of minimum data center cost of service

and

the minimum required monthly payment is a forced 85% of capacity/energy/renewable energy costs + other service costs

so therefore 600 months, 50yrs equivalent liquidity to be held for 20 years or face penalty lol

https://t.co/4TSWanLFN7

[Aniruddh Mohan @aniruddh_mohan]

Big news from Wisconsin

A hyperscaler has sued v large load tariff demands (specifically high collaterals)

- As per new rules customers below A-/A3 credit rating must post huge collateral, in this case >$7B in security + >$100M in annual costs
- Oracle (1 GW Stargate in WI) argues few companies qualify, waiver flexibility was removed, costs are disproportionate, rule would push $$ out of WI
- Reminder that such tariff provisions are being developed for large loads with customer protection in mind, but are certainly unprecedented
- Big risks is utilities build out infrastructure for demand that never energizes, leaving existing ratepayers holding the bag
- Oracle is willing to put up letter of credit for $700M (10%)

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

@TKavulla @SimonMahan Congratulations!

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

@ArushiSF i'm obsessed with the transparency piece
we literally have all the data. soooo much data. we have to use to educate and inform and make it so obvious that costs ARE NOT being shifted and put that issue to rest

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

Utilities aren't all using the same verbatim credit thresholds.

In Imperial Irrigation District, for example:

The free path — the parent guaranty — is only open to companies rated A-/A3 or better.

That sounds reasonable until you realize that investment grade starts way down at BBB-/Baa3.

The guaranty gate sits three full notches higher.

So a company can be solidly investment grade — the kind of credit a bank lends to all day — and still be locked out of the free path.

and to be clear this isnt "creditworthy vs. risky"

It's "elite credit vs. merely strong credit."

A BBB+ developer, genuinely safe by any normal standard, posts the full collateral. The A-rated giant signs and pays nothing.

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

Utilities are rolling out tariffs to stop data centers from shifting costs onto your electric bill. Good. But the fix quietly favors the giants and that should bother the very people cheering it on.

None of this is the utilities' fault, exactly. They weren't tasked with keeping the playing field even — they were tasked with protecting ratepayers. And in doing so, they are erecting very high barriers to entry.

The irony:

The loudest voices demanding that data centers "pay their fair share" are people like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. They're right to worry about the cost shift. But they're also the most consistent critics of corporate concentration.

These tariffs answer their first demand. Make data centers pay upfront, post collateral, prove they can cover the bill — that's the cost shift fix in action. But the same instinct — make them pay big, and pay early — is exactly what advantages the companies with the deepest pockets.

The fair-share remedy and the anti-concentration goal are pulling against each other.

So in ten years, Bernie and Sen. Warren might look around and ask why so few companies own the data centers. The likely answer: they were the only ones who could clear the barriers utilities built while trying to protect ratepayers — barriers the fair-share crowd asked for.

[Billy Gamboa @billy_gamboa]

Example:

Same $150M security requirement. A hyperscaler with a parent guaranty posts $0 and it costs them $0.

Everyone else pays real money to satisfy the identical requirement — ~$18M for a letter of credit, ~$99M if they post cash — none of which the hyperscaler pays.

Same rule, wildly different costs.

To be clear, this isn't a scandal — it's just how credit works. A stronger balance sheet is genuinely less risky, so it gets better terms. That's rational.

The point isn't that the pricing is wrong; it's that rational pricing, applied here, quietly tilts the whole industry toward the few.