Time-to-power is how long it takes a new large load to energize — not to file an interconnection request, not to hold a queue position, to take load. On the HD Market Scorecard it is 35% of the grade, the heaviest single factor. Large-load tariff and moratorium climate is another 20%. Together they are more than half the index, because a site that cannot turn on is not an AI campus.
The other weights are uncommitted capacity and reserve margin (25%), forward power price and congestion (10%), and HD's on-the-ground read (10%). Price without a path is a spreadsheet. Capacity without a study date is a press release. The grade is built to punish both.
What changed in 2026
On June 18 FERC ordered PJM, MISO, SPP, CAISO, ISO-NE, and NYISO to justify or rewrite large-load and co-location rules. The same day, Texas approved ERCOT Batch Zero for ≥75 MW requests. By September, ERCOT had issued conditional Batch Zero classifications to utilities while keeping ≥75 MW computational load frozen pending a statewide audit aimed at December 10. PJM's monitor had put a dollar figure on data-center capacity cost. New York had a statewide hyperscale moratorium. New Jersey had a take-or-pay tariff bill.
The national default for speed was Texas. That default now carries an audit asterisk through year-end. The eastern RTOs were already slow; they are now also political. SPP is the market that still has a named large-load product without a pause.
Queue paper versus a path
A 474 GW queue is not 474 GW of power. Study processes that force deposits, site control, and attestations shrink published queues toward the truth. That is a healthy correction. It is also a re-pricing: utility-confirmed, site-controlled, already-studied capacity gains; speculative positions lose.
Bring-your-own-power and behind-the-meter structures are a time-to-power product. They do not wait for the shared-grid cohort. They take fuel-price risk and curtailment risk instead. After SB 6 and Docket 59220, that curtailment risk in Texas is explicit and not capped by the paired generator.
How to read the grades
A means a new large load can still energize on a commercial calendar with ordinary friction. A- means the best market on the board just added a gate. B+ means open process, not ERCOT speed. C means demand is real and the path is long. D means cost-shift and reliability politics are the binding constraint, not a missing substation.
Hold is the default. A notch requires a dated history row and a brief. The same shock is not cut twice. Current grades and the full series live on the HD Market Scorecard.