Exelon Weeds Out Data Center Pipeline
So it can happen in 2026.
Exelon Corp. executives have significantly trimmed their estimates for data center growth in the utility’s footprint, which spans five states and the District of Columbia. CFO Jeanne Jones told analysts on July 30 that the change is the result of Exelon teams having culled “speculative projects” as part of a plan to set up the company for durable growth.
In documents presented alongside Exelon’s second-quarter financial results, Jones, President and CEO Calvin Butler and their team said Exelon’s six utilities serving nearly 11 million customers have about 7 gigawatts worth of data centers in advanced phases of design and another 4 GW supported by transmission service agreements comprising about $1 billion of collateral. The company’s pipeline of possible future projects, meanwhile, would require about 25 GW of power.
Those numbers for advanced and possible future projects are down significantly from early May, when Exelon leaders estimated that 18 GW worth of projects had a high probability of happening (and when about 8 GW worth of work was backed by TSAs) while data centers needing 43 GW were in the company’s longer-term pipeline.
“We said, ‘We’re going to study the clusters, we’re going to offer the customer a TSA, sign the TSA and then importantly, put up collateral behind that.’ And so what this update reflects is we have now weeded out speculative projects,” Jones said on a conference call. “It gives us proactive insight into what is real. And this is what you want management to do. You want us to provide real and durable growth.”
Exelon leaders’ more sober assessment of potential data centers across their operations also reflects their broader stance on growth. Three months ago, Butler and his team shuffled some of their investment plans to emphasize transmission projects in favor of distribution work. That change came shortly after Exelon’s PECO subsidiary in southeast Pennsylvania had quickly pulled a $510 million rate case filing when it drew the ire of Gov. Josh Shapiro.
Along with reporting Exelon’s Q2 results – $396 million of net income on total revenues of $5.97 billion – Butler and his team said they expect the company will continue to grow earnings per share at a rate of 5% to 7% through 2029. They also pointed to recent filings with Maryland regulators for distribution work and in New Jersey for a 500 megawatt transmission-connected battery plan that would add $1 billion to Exelon’s $41.7 billion capital spending plan.
Investors didn’t love the sound of a smaller data center pipeline: On July 30, shares of Exelon (Ticker: EXC) gave up 3% and closed at $45.58. On Aug. 3, they finished the session at $45.63 but are still up slightly over the past six months. That has left Exelon with a market value of $47 billion.
About the Author
Geert De Lombaerde
Senior Editor
A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has more than two decades of business journalism experience and writes about markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications T&D World, Healthcare Innovation, IndustryWeek, FleetOwner and Oil & Gas Journal. With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati and later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal. Most recently, he oversaw the online and print products of the Nashville Post and reported primarily on Middle Tennessee’s finance sector as well as many of its publicly traded companies.