Another week, another PJM drama.
Top Trump administration officials and a bipartisan group of state governors are pushing the grid operator to hold an “emergency” auction for data centers to procure power. Elsewhere, the administration was back in court as it seeks to throttle offshore wind development.
Here’s your (last) week in numbers, Utility Divers!
►Six to 12 months
The soonest the PJM Interconnection could hold a new “emergency” power auction for data centers at the request of the Trump administration and governors in the market’s footprint, according to Capstone analysts. Any change to PJM’s reliability backstop or capacity procurement framework would require tariff revisions, either proposed by PJM under the Federal Power Act’s Section 205 or initiated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission under Section 206, the analysts said. They emphasized that the request lacks binding authority, “reinforcing that this is policy signaling, not an imminent market reform.”
►2.6%
The percentage by which the PJM Interconnection cut its 2028 summer peak demand forecast compared with previous prediction. It trimmed its expectations for demand growth for the next five years, through 2031, based on updates to electric vehicle and economic data as well as stricter vetting of planned data centers and other large loads, according to the grid operator. It revised upward its longer-term expectations, however. PJM’s downward revisions to its near-term load forecast don’t indicate weakening demand for electricity, according to Jefferies equity analysts. “We read the load revisions as reflective of pushouts/delays, NOT weakness in demand,” they said in a note Wednesday.
►$27.6M
The value of federal clean energy grants that could be restored following a judge’s ruling last week that the Trump administration’s targeted cancellations were unconstitutional. The lawsuit was filed in November by St. Paul, Minnesota, and a coalition of energy and community advocates after the government terminated more than $7.5 billion in financial awards in states that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris for president. While the district court decision impacts a limited number of grants, the Environmental Defense Fund, one of the plaintiffs, said the court’s reasoning could be a blueprint for “all who were subject to this unconstitutional action violating equal protection of the law.”
►3
Number of temporary injunctions granted last week to offshore wind developers, allowing them to restart their projects. Last month, the Trump administration froze construction on all U.S. offshore wind projects, citing classified security concerns. Judges sided with the developers and against the government, however, allowing work to resume on the approximately 700-MW Revolution Wind project offshore Rhode Island; the 810-MW Empire Wind project offshore New York; and the 2.6-GW Coastal Virginia Offshort Wind project.
►$87M
How much the EPA estimates that its final rule on nitrogen oxide standards for new gas-fired power plants and other stationary turbines will save power plant owners over eight years. The final rule released last week is significantly less stringent than the one the Biden administration proposed, which the agency said would have cost $166 million in the same period. The Biden proposed rule would have provided net benefits of up to $340 million, in part through improved public health.
