A hyperscale campus does not run on an interconnection request. It runs on an executed electric service agreement — a signed contract for delivered megawatts, with a term, a price and, increasingly, a penalty for walking away. That distinction has become the axis on which regulated power companies are now valued, and the three biggest names attached to the artificial-intelligence buildout sit in three different places on it.

What is signed, and what is only asked

Dominion Energy, the monopoly supplier to Northern Virginia's "Data Center Alley," is the only one that publishes both numbers. About 53.8 GW sat in some stage of contracting as of July, up more than 5 GW since December; roughly 12 GW of that is under executed agreements. Behind it sits real regulatory machinery: Virginia's State Corporation Commission created a rate class for customers demanding 25 MW or more, effective 1 January 2027, requiring them to pay for at least 85% of contracted transmission and distribution demand and 60% of generation demand even if usage falls away. On 31 July the same commission ordered Dominion to assign transmission built solely for large loads directly to those loads, rather than spreading it across household bills.

Entergy, the New Orleans utility serving three million customers across the Gulf Coast, has named campuses instead of a tariff — Meta in Richland Parish, Amazon Web Services and AVAIO in Mississippi. That work added $14bn to a four-year capital plan now at $57bn. But three gas plants are approved and seven more await Louisiana regulators, whose decision is not scheduled until 16 December. Cost allocation is contested there too: more than half a billion dollars of transmission built for Meta would land on all customers at completion.

NextEra Energy pairs Florida Power & Light, serving 5.7 million accounts, with the largest US renewables developer. Its regulated large-load book is the least advanced of the three — 21 GW of interest, 12 GW in advanced discussion, an expectation raised to 8 GW by 2032, and no signed transaction announced.

The month belonged to one earnings call, not to bond yields

The convenient story is that a 30-year Treasury yield at a 19-year high knocked the bond proxies down. It does not hold. On 18 August, the session the long bond touched 5.32%, NextEra rose and American Electric Power rose; Dominion and Entergy each moved less than two-tenths of a percent. Across that whole week the hardest fall belonged to PPL, a pure wires company with no generation to sell.

Entergy's month is almost entirely one dated session. On 29 July it reported adjusted earnings of $1.03 a share against roughly $1.13 expected and fell 4% in a day — about four-fifths of the entire 30-day decline. The business underneath supports the reaction: revenue growth slowed from 12.0% in the first quarter to 5.9% in the second, and operating income has fallen year on year in each of the last four quarters. Diluted shares are up 4.6%, funding the capital plan and leaking rate-base growth before it reaches per-share earnings. Consensus nonetheless models earnings up 12.3% this year and 15.9% next. At 23.8x forward earnings, Entergy has grown more expensive per dollar of gross profit than it was in May — 9.3x against 8.6x — while the shares fell.

NextEra diverges the other way. Second-quarter revenue rose 12.4%, operating income 17.1% and net income 55%, the development backlog reached 35.1 GW, and guidance was unchanged — against a share price down 5.8% over three months. Its multiple has compressed hard: 8.4x trailing gross profit versus 11.7x in May. Because reported margins jumped, the cleaner lens is the forward multiple, 20.8x, and it sits above the trailing 18.7x only because trailing accounting profit is flattered.

Dominion is a special case that anyone reading utility indexes should know about. Since 18 May it has been a claim on NextEra: an all-stock combination at 0.8138 NextEra shares per Dominion share plus $360m in cash. The ratio between the two closes has sat between 0.789 and 0.802 since mid-July, ending Thursday about 2.3% below terms — a spread that is Virginia politics, not fundamentals. Governor Abigail Spanberger intervened in the state case on 6 August, legislators declared opposition on 18 August, and a commissioner declined to recuse herself on 19 August. Shareholders vote 3 September.

The squeeze that rates actually cause

The rate mechanism bites in a narrower place than share prices. Allowed returns are fixed by regulators — Dominion's was set at 9.8%, below the 10.4% it sought, with $565.7m of a requested $822m increase granted. Every point of yield therefore compresses the spread between what capital costs and what a utility may earn on it. Duke Energy showed the arithmetic this month, selling equity units at a 7.75% all-in rate against a 9.8% allowed return. That is the real transmission channel from the bond market into this industry, and it has nothing to do with whether a data center signs.

The setup

Where it stands — Contracted load is disclosed and enforceable at Dominion, pending at Entergy, and still only interest at NextEra's Florida utility. Would confirm — NextEra announcing its first signed Florida large-load agreement before year-end, or Entergy's operating income turning positive year on year. Would invalidate — Dominion's executed-agreement figure stalling near 12 GW at the third quarter while the contracting queue keeps growing. Watch next — Shareholder votes on the merger on 3 September; the Louisiana decision on seven gas plants due 16 December. Valuation — Entergy 23.8x forward and 26.4x trailing earnings; NextEra 20.8x forward, its gross-profit multiple down to 8.4x from 11.7x in May.