WASHINGTON, DC – The proposal today from the White House acknowledges that energy demand is forecast to grow much faster than the grid operator PJM Interconnection is currently able to bring on new generating resources. Advanced Energy United, the industry association representing many of the leading solar, wind, storage, demand, and distributed energy companies, supports market solutions that give the companies in these sectors equal opportunity to compete to provide the power that the PJM region needs. It’s yet to be seen if the proposal would create a fair and competitive market-based solution that adequately protects customers, and it leaves unaddressed many of the underlying factors driving up energy costs.
“Advanced energy companies will be first in line to meet data center demand if this proposal is implemented in a way that's fair and competitive,” said Heather O’Neill, President and CEO of Advanced Energy United. “However, significant hurdles remain. We will never meet our growing energy needs until the grid operator PJM makes it easier for advanced energy projects to connect to the power grid. The priority should be to clear the path for the most cost-effective, reliable, and readily available ways to generate electricity, no matter who is buying it.”
Whether a new auction within PJM to address load growth will be fair, competitive, and effective at shielding other customers from cost and reliability impacts will depend on details of the plan that would need to be worked out by PJM and approved by FERC. What is clear is that a separate auction to address the needs of new large loads does not make any less urgent the need to implement durable solutions such as fixing the backlogged interconnection queue, building smarter regional and interregional transmission, pursuing market reforms to reflect the shifting resource mix, and adopting new technologies to bring PJM’s grid into the 21st century.
“The line for energy projects to connect to the power grid in the Mid-Atlantic has basically had a ‘closed for maintenance’ sign up for nearly four years now, and this proposal does nothing to fix that—or any of the other market and planning reforms that are long overdue,” said Jon Gordon, Director at Advanced Energy United. “More short-term Band-Aid remedies aren’t a substitute for durable fixes.”
A 2025 analysis found that consumer electricity costs could have been reduced by as much as $7 billion dollars in a recent PJM capacity auction had the grid operator’s interconnection process been working more efficiently to bring needed supply online to match demand. In 2024, PJM earned a D- for its interconnection process, the lowest grade of any grid operator in the country, on an Advanced Energy United scorecard.