Everyone Wants to Know PJM’s Data Center Plan

As America’s largest electricity market was deliberating over how to reform the interconnection of data centers, its independent market monitor threw a regulatory grenade into the mix. Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, the monitor filed a complaint with federal regulators saying that PJM Interconnection, which spans from Washington, D.C. to Ohio, should simply stop connecting new large data centers that it doesn’t have the capacity to serve reliably.

The complaint is just the latest development in a months-long debate involving the electricity market, power producers, utilities, elected officials, environmental activists, and consumer advocates over how to connect the deluge data centers in PJM’s 13-state territory without further increasing consumer electricity prices.

The system has been pushed into crisis by skyrocketing capacity auction prices, in which generators get paid to ensure they’re available when demand spikes. Those capacity auction prices have been fueled by high-octane demand projections, with PJM’s summer peak forecasted to jump from 154 gigawatts to 210 gigawatts in a decade. The 2034-35 forecast jumped 17% in just a year.

Over the past two two capacity auctions, actual and forecast data center growth has been responsible for over $16.6 billion in new costs, according to PJM’s independent market monitor; by contrast, the previous year’s auction generated a mere $2.2 billion. This has translated directly to higher retail electricity prices, including 20% increases in some parts of PJM’s territory, like New Jersey. It has also generated concerns about reliability of the whole system.

PJM wants to reform how data centers interconnect before the next capacity auction in June, but its members committee was unable to come to an agreement on a recommendation to PJM’s board during a November meeting. There were a dozen proposals, including one from the monitor; like all the others, it failed to garner the necessary two-thirds majority vote to be adopted formally.

So the monitor took its ideas straight to the top.

The market monitor’s complaint to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission tracks closely with its plan at the November meeting. “PJM is currently proposing to allow the interconnection of large new data center loads that it cannot serve reliably and that will require load curtailments (black outs) of the data centers or of other customers at times. That result is not consistent with the basic responsibility of PJM to maintain a reliable grid and is therefore not just and reasonable,” the filing said. “Interconnecting large new data center loads when adequate capacity is not available is not providing reliable service.”

A PJM spokesperson told me, “We are still reviewing the complaint and will reserve comment at this time.”

But can its board still get a plan to FERC and avoid another blowout capacity auction?

“PJM is going to make a filing in December, no matter what. They have to get these rules in place to get to that next capacity auction in June,” Jon Gordon, policy director at Advanced Energy United, told me. “That’s what this has been about from the get-go. Nothing is going to stop PJM from filling something.”

The PJM spokesperson confirmed to me that “the board intends to act on large load additions to the system and is expected to provide an indication of its next steps over the next few weeks.” But especially after the membership’s failure to make a unified recommendation, what that proposal will be remains unclear. That has been a source of agita for the organizations’ many stakeholders.

“The absence of an affirmative advisory recommendation from the Members Committee creates uncertainty as to what reforms PJM’s Board of Managers may submit to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and when stakeholders can expect that submission,” analysts at ClearView Energy Partners wrote in a note to clients. In spite of PJM’s commitments, they warned that the process could “slip into January,” which would give FERC just enough time to process the submission before the next capacity auction.

One idea did attract a majority vote from PJM’s membership: Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative’s, which largely echoed the PJM board’s own plan with some amendments. That suggestion called for a “Price Responsive Demand” system, in which electricity customers would agree to reduce their usage when wholesale prices spike. The system would be voluntary, unlike an earlier PJM proposal, which foresaw forcing large customers to curtail their power. “The load elects to not take on a capacity obligation, therefore does not pay for capacity, and is required to reduce demand during stressed system conditions,” PJM explained in an update. The Southern Maryland plan tweaks the PRD system to adjust its pricing mechanism. but largely aligns with what PJM’s staff put forward.

“There’s almost no real difference between the PJM proposal and that Southern Maryland proposal,” Gordon told me.

That might please restive stakeholders, or at least be something PJM’s board could go forward with knowing that the balance of its voting membership agreed with something similar.

“We maintain our view that a final proposal could resemble the proposed solution package from PJM staff,” the ClearView note said. “We also think the Board could propose reforms to PJM’s PRD program. Indeed, as noted above, SMECO’s revisions to the service gained majority support.”

The PJM plan also included relatively uncontroversial reforms to load forecasting to cut down on duplicated requests and better share information, and an “expedited interconnection track” on which new, large-scale generation could be fast-tracked if it were signed off on by a state government “to expedite consideration of permitting and siting.”

Gordon said that the market monitor’s complaint could be read as the organization “desperately trying to get FERC to weigh in” on its side, even if PJM is more likely to go with something like its own staff-authored submission.

“The key aspect of the market monitor’s proposal was that PJM should not allow a data center to interconnect until there was enough generation to supply them,” Gordon explained. During the meeting preceding the vote, “PJM said they didn’t think they had the authority to deny someone interconnection.”

This dispute over whether the electricity system has an obligation to serve all customers has been the existential question making the debate about how to serve data centers extra angsty.

But PJM looks to be trying to sidestep that big question and nibble around the edges of reform.

“Everybody is really conflicted here,” Gordon told me. “They’re all about protecting consumers. They don’t want to see any more increases, obviously, and they want to keep the lights on. Of course, they also want data center developers in their states. It’s really hard to have all three.”