‘why dont the make their own power‘
Actually SVP has their own power generation. They have lower rates than PG&E and the city has favorable terms to attract data centers. For example, a data center wants 4k feed onsite and SVP will build a substation on data center on site and pass half the cost to the data center.
I have a friend who is the senior estimator for SVP and he is always telling me about the politics of the city of Santa Clara.