Utility Dive reports that PJM stakeholders failed to reach consensus on a set of proposals to govern how large loads, such as data centers, connect to the grid. In a bulletin on the meeting, United’s Jon Gordon said the vote highlights the difficulty of balancing resource adequacy, ratepayer costs, and rapid data center growth in a region already facing generation shortfalls and long timelines for new capacity.
PJM Interconnection stakeholders on Wednesday failed to select a plan for how to add data centers and other large loads to the grid in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions.
As the last step in a Critical Issue Fast Path stakeholder process, PJM’s Members Committee voted on a dozen proposals that would set new rules for interconnecting large loads to the power system. None of the proposals garnered the two-thirds support needed to pass the “advisory” vote.
“The voting reflects the nearly impossible challenge of trying to ensure resource adequacy and control ratepayer costs, while also allowing data center development in a market that is already short on generation supply and faces a 5-to-7 year timeline to bring on new large-scale generating resources,” Jon Gordon, a director at Advanced Energy United, a clean energy trade group, said in a bulletin on the meeting.
A proposal offered by the Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative that focused on one issue — price responsive demand — received the most votes. After that, comprehensive proposals offered by PJM’s market monitor, the grid operator itself and a coalition that included state governors, the Data Center Coalition, Exelon and PPL received the most votes, in order.
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