Grid operator
The grid covering 13 states and Washington DC. Its prices are the clearest evidence that data centres are now moving consumer bills.
$136.53 per MWh, Q1 2026, up 76% year on year
· 6 min
After nearly 4,000 megawatts of Virginia data centre load vanished in one event, the mid-Atlantic grid operator is drafting a binding rule to keep big new customers connected.
· L1 Power and land · 6,831 MW; to Feb 2027 · Reported
PJM, the grid operator for 13 US states and Washington DC, wanted power companies to build 6,831 megawatts of new backup electricity as data centres multiply. Per PJM's own account of the decision, federal regulators accepted the plan but pushed its start back five months to February 28, 2027, and gave any new plants built for it until June 2032 to start running. This desk read PJM's summary, not the regulator's order itself. If you live in one of those 13 states, this is one of the mechanisms meant to keep your power on as more data centres plug into the same grid.
· Band Rules and society · 8 state agencies plus outside experts · Confirmed
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed an executive order on 22 September creating the Illinois AI Cabinet. It brings outside experts together with leaders of eight state agencies, among them the State Police, the emergency management agency, the Illinois Commerce Commission and the Department of Public Health. It will advise on preparing for and responding to AI-related incidents and on protecting public assets such as water systems. It is also asked to weigh further steps: tying data-centre tax incentives and permits to safety standards, the burden data centres put on the grid and on bills, including through PJM, and whether AI companies should be strictly liable for harm their AI causes. Members will be named in the coming weeks.
· L1 Power and land · 835 MW to the PJM grid; final assessment published 25 Sep · Confirmed
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with the Department of Energy, has published a final environmental assessment that finds no significant impact from restarting the Christopher M. Crane Clean Energy Center, formerly Three Mile Island Unit 1, in Pennsylvania. The NRC is still considering the exemption and three licence changes that Constellation Energy asked for, and the Energy Department is deciding on federal loan-guarantee support. The notice says the restart would provide 835 megawatts to the grid of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland, and that Constellation points to a 20-year agreement signed in 2024 to supply the plant's power to Microsoft's data centres on that grid. Nothing changes yet for people on that grid; the NRC's licence decisions still have to come.
· L1 Power and land · LOLE 0.59 (reference) to 13.20 (worst case) by 2030, vs 0.1 target · Confirmed
A study commissioned by Pennsylvania's Public Utility Commission and written by Synapse Energy Economics with two other firms models how reliable PJM, the grid operator serving thirteen states and the District of Columbia, will be in 2030. It measures loss of load expectation, the expected number of days a year when supply falls short, against PJM's planning target of 0.1, or one day in ten years. On PJM's own 2026 load forecast the study gets 0.59, nearly six times worse. In its worst case, with higher demand and slower new supply, it gets 13.20, which it describes as more than 13 days a year with loss of load events. It says most of the load growth through 2040 in Pennsylvania and PJM comes from data centres. For people in the region this is a warning from a model, not an outage; whether it comes true depends on how much gets built and how fast new power follows.
· L1 Power and land · about 4,000 MW tripped on 22 July · Confirmed
PJM, the power grid that serves 13 states and Washington DC, said it will propose a new rule requiring data centres and other very large electricity users to keep running through brief grid disturbances instead of automatically disconnecting. The proposal follows an event on 22 July in which PJM says nearly 4,000 megawatts of data centre load in northern Virginia unexpectedly dropped off the grid at once, forcing PJM and the utility Dominion Energy to manage a sudden imbalance between how much power was being generated and how much was being used. PJM plans to file the rule with federal regulators in November; nothing is binding yet. If it takes effect, large data centres in PJM's territory would face a legal requirement to stay connected during disturbances, meant to reduce the chance that one data centre's own safety trip becomes a wider power problem for everyone else on the grid.
Read the story: PJM wants data centres to stop disconnecting when the grid wobbles · PJM
· L1 Power and land · $325.00/MW-day · Confirmed
PJM runs the power market for 13 states and buys future supply at a yearly auction. Every price hit the legal maximum and it still bought less spare capacity than its own safety target requires. Hitting the cap means the market could not balance at any price it is allowed to charge.
· L1 Power and land · 6 RTOs · Confirmed
America's energy regulator gave all six regional grid operators 60 days to either defend their existing rules for very large electricity customers or change them. Data centres are the reason. Those rules were written when nothing on the network drew this much power.
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