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What do data centers, EVs, and new semiconductor plants have in common?
We’re gonna need a bigger electricity generation system. That’s what PJM Interconnection, the massive electricity market spanning 13 states on the East Coast and in the Midwest, said in a report Monday.
PJM predicted that its peak electricity demand would increase every year by 1.7% in the summer and 2% in the winter. It also anticipates overall energy use to grow 2.4% annually over the next decade — an increase of 200,000 gigawatt-hours, or roughly 25%, by 2034.
That increase in demand is also about three times a previous forecast, according to Utility Dive. PJM attributes the big jump to a few factors, calling out specifically data centers, new manufacturing plants, and more electrification, especially of transportation.
The PJM forecast provides a case study for the challenges the Biden administration faces as it pursues the twin goals of lowering emissions and decarbonizing the electricity sector, along with trying to revive American manufacturing.
In order to reduce emissions, you can’t just replace fossil fuel-burning power plants with renewable and non-carbon energy sources. Everything else that emits carbon has to be decarbonized as well, including transportation, which makes up about 30% of emissions.
But doing this increases demand for electricity — a car that used to be powered by igniting gasoline is now powered by a battery that has to be charged. Electrification will put even more pressure on non-carbon power generation: not only do some combination of solar panels, wind turbines, nuclear power plants, dams and steam have to replace existing electricity demand, it has to make up for that new demand as well.
While there are ways to moderate this demand — you can pay consumers to use less electricity at peak times and have electric car batteries work as power supply for homes, for example — a world where electric power replaces combustion will mean we need to find more electricity.
That’s no small task. There are about 500,000 electric cars in the PJM area and the projection is that there will be 23 million by the end of the next decade, while the number of medium and heavy-duty electric vehicles will increase from 25,000 to 1.5 million, according to PJM’s forecast.
And then there’s new sources of electricity demand that have nothing to do with electrification, like, say, a new semiconductor plant outside Columbus, Ohio, being built by Intel or data centers in Maryland.
Right now, PJM’s existing electric load is serviced by a relatively dirty grid that’s over half coal and natural gas (although one third also comes from nuclear). PJM, like many electricity markets, has expressed worries about how retiring fossil fuel plants could impact the reliability of the grid as a whole. The new forecast “underscores the need to maintain and develop enough generation resources to serve that growing demand,” PJM’s senior vice president for planning Kenneth Seiler said in a statement.
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A new letter sent Friday asks for reams of documentation on developers’ compliance with the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is sending letters to wind developers across the U.S. asking for volumes of records about eagle deaths, indicating an imminent crackdown on wind farms in the name of bird protection laws.
The Service on Friday sent developers a request for records related to their permits under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, which compels companies to obtain permission for “incidental take,” i.e. the documented disturbance of eagle species protected under the statute, whether said disturbance happens by accident or by happenstance due to the migration of the species. Developers who received the letter — a copy of which was reviewed by Heatmap — must provide a laundry list of documents to the Service within 30 days, including “information collected on each dead or injured eagle discovered.” The Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
These letters represent the rapid execution of an announcement made just a week ago by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who released a memo directing department staff to increase enforcement of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act “to ensure that our national bird is not sacrificed for unreliable wind facilities.” The memo stated that all permitted wind facilities would receive records requests related to the eagle law by August 11 — so, based on what we’ve now seen and confirmed, they’re definitely doing that.
There’s cause for wind developers, renewables advocates, and climate activists to be alarmed here given the expanding horizon of enforcement of wildlife statutes, which have become a weapon for the administration against zero-carbon energy generation.
The August 4 memo directed the Service to refer “violations” of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act to the agency solicitor’s office, with potential further referral to the Justice Department for criminal or civil charges. Violating this particular law can result in a fine of at least $100,000 per infraction, a year in prison, or both, and penalties increase if a company, organization, or individual breaks the law more than once. It’s worth noting at this point that according to FWS’s data, oil pits historically kill far more birds per year than wind turbines.
In a statement to Heatmap News, the American Clean Power Association defended the existing federal framework around protecting eagles from wind turbines, noted the nation’s bald eagle population has risen significantly overall in the past two decades, and claimed golden eagle populations are “stable, at the same time wind energy has been growing.”
“This is clear evidence that strong protections and reasonable permitting rules work. Wind and eagles are successfully co-existing,” ACP spokesperson Jason Ryan said.
The $7 billion program had been the only part of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund not targeted for elimination by the Trump administration.
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to cancel grants awarded from the $7 billion Solar for All program, the final surviving grants from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, by the end of this week, The New York Times is reporting. Two sources also told the same to Heatmap.
Solar for All awarded funds to 60 nonprofits, tribes, state energy offices, and municipalities to deliver the benefits of solar energy — namely, utility bill savings — to low-income communities. Some of the programs are focused on rooftop solar, while others are building community solar, which enable residents that don’t own their homes to access cheaper power.
The EPA is drafting termination letters to all 60 grantees, the Times reported. An EPA spokesperson equivocated in response to emailed questions from Heatmap about the fate of the program. “With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, EPA is working to ensure Congressional intent is fully implemented in accordance with the law,” the person said.
Although Solar for All was one of the programs affected by the Trump administration’s initial freeze on Inflation Reduction Act funding, EPA had resumed processing payments for recipients after a federal judge placed an injunction on the pause. But in mid-March, the EPA Office of the Inspector General announced its intent to audit Solar for All. The results of that audit have not yet been published.
The Solar for All grants are a subset of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, most of which had been designated to set up a series of green lending programs. In March, Administrator Lee Zeldin accused the program of fraud, waste, and abuse — the so-called “gold bar” scandal — and attempted to claw back all $20 billion. Recipients of that funding are fighting the termination in an ongoing court case.
State attorneys generals are likely to challenge the Solar for All terminations in court, should they go through, a source familiar with the state programs told me.
All $7 billion under the program has been obligated to grantees, but the money is not yet fully out the door, as recipients must request reimbursements from the EPA as they spend down their grants. Very little has been spent so far, as many grantees opted to use the first year of the five-year program as a planning period.
Along with Senator John Curtis of Utah, the Iowa senator is aiming to preserve the definition of “begin construction” as it applies to tax credits.
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley wants “begin construction” to mean what it means.
To that end, Grassley has placed a “hold” on three nominees to the Treasury Department, the agency tasked with writing the rules and guidance for implementing the tax provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, many of which depend on that all-important definition.
Grassley and other Republican senators had negotiated a “glidepath for the orderly phaseout” of tax credits for renewables, the senator in a statement announcing the hold, giving developers until July 2026 to start construction on projects (or complete the projects and have them operating by the end of 2027) to qualify for tax credits.
Days after signing the law, however, President Trump signed an executive order calling for new guidance on what exactly starting construction means. The title of that order, “Ending Market Distorting Subsidies for Unreliable, Foreign Controlled Energy Sources,” has generated understandable concern within the renewables industry that, as part of a deal to get conservative House members to support the bill, the Treasury Department will write new guidance making it much more difficult for wind and solar projects to qualify for tax credits.
“What it means for a project to ‘begin construction'’ has been well established by Treasury guidance for more than a decade,” Grassley said. Under these longstanding definitions, “beginning construction” can mean undertaking “physical work of a significant nature,” which can include or buying certain long-lead equipment or components like transformers. Another way to qualify for the credits is to spend 5% of the total cost of the project.
A more restrictive interpretation of “begin construction,” however, could turn the tax credit language into a dead letter, especially when combined with the rest of the administration’s full-spectrum legal assault on renewable energy.
Grassley said that new guidance is expected within two weeks, and that “until I can be certain that such rules and regulations adhere to the law and congressional intent, I intend to continue to object to the consideration of these Treasury nominees.”Grassley has a long history with production tax credits for wind energy, playing a pivotal role in their extension in 2015. “As the father of the first wind energy tax credit in 1992, I can say that the tax credit was never meant to be permanent,” Grassley said at the time. “The five-year extension for wind energy brings about the best possible long-term outcome that provides certainty, predictability and a responsible phase-down of a tax incentive for a renewable energy source.”
Almost 60% of Iowa’s electricity is generated by wind turbines, the highest proportion of any state, according to Energy Information Administration data.
Utah Senator John Curtis has joined Grassley in placing a hold on nominees, delaying their vote before the whole Senate, according to Politico’s Joshua Siegel. Grassley and Curtis, alongside Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, were unable to get a meeting with the Treasury Department to discuss the guidance, Siegel reported.