FirstEnergy Corp.

FirstEnergy has stopped fixing itself and started building: a $36 billion five-year plan, growing with every data center that signs, paid for up front with borrowed money and recovered later through rate cases that affordability politics now decides. How much of the contracted data center load has a signed service agreement?

• The investment plan keeps growing, and data centers are the reason.

  The five-year plan was lifted to $36 billion, with about $250 million of transmission spending for each gigawatt of load that signs. Formula rates recover that work, not rate cases, so it reaches earnings faster than anything else here. Which states hold most of the un-contracted data center pipeline?

• Growth this year arrives almost entirely in the second half.

  Core earnings rose 2.5% in the first half, and reaching the guidance midpoint needs the second half up about 10%. Management says that was always the plan, but it leaves the year resting on the next two quarters arriving on schedule.

• The building happens years before customers pay for it.

  Capital spending ran $4.7 billion in 2025 against $3.7 billion of cash from operations, and the gap was borrowed, lifting total debt about 18% in six quarters. Regulators decide how much of that spending is ever recovered. What share of the five-year capital plan is recovered through formula rates?