>any promises will be ignored, avoided or dumped onto regular people the very moment the approval is granted

Doesn't seem too hard to force the datacenter to put up a bond for it, and then if the requirements/timelines aren't met the bond's seized.

it's exceptionally hard because energy is fungible

try writing the contract, say, requiring 500MW of new gas generation to be built locally to power the DC, which is grid connected

they'll then secretly write a contract to sell 500MW of gas generation on the open market, conditional on approval

at some price they'll find a buyer, at which point 500MW increase in grid capacity has been cancelled out despite them actually building the plant

and all it cost them was the difference in the contract price

Hmm not quite following: 500MW was created at connected to grid as required although delegated to 3rd party. And the DC uses that power. So what's the problem?

500MW doesn't get built on the other side of the country when needed as the power has been sold

so there's a lag, but at this kind of scale you don't really care

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