Addressing Resource Adequacy and Affordability in the Face of Load Growth

Publish Date: June 23, 2025

As data centers and other new customers arrive in PJM, the region faces rising costs and potential reliability challenges. 

State decision-makers have control over how load growth is addressed. With proper oversight, timely planning, and action, states can enable economic growth and customer benefits tied to these new loads – without sacrificing reliability, affordability, or state policy objectives.

 Advanced Energy United has created a resource for state legislators and regulators in PJM that outlines 10 specific, proactive actions state decision-makers can take right now to effectively manage load growth.

The actions recommended to PJM decision-makers fall into four categories:

• Incorporating advanced transmission technologies – adopting a set of hardware and software solutions that increase the capacity, efficiency, reliability, or resilience of an existing or new transmission facility.
• Enabling virtual power plants – expanding how states leverage customer-sited resources beyond traditional commercial & industrial demand response programs and leveraging residential and commercial loads and DERs in powerful new ways.
• Managing large loads – interconnection and flexibility strategies to protect the grid and help customers interconnect.
• Expediting new large-scale resource additions – helping to bring new generation and battery storage online quickly by addressing development delays, inefficiencies in the PJM interconnection queue process, burdensome local and state permitting processes, and delays tied to network upgrades.

PJM decision-makers should not rely solely on traditional system planning decision points to take actions related to load growth, such as integrated resource plans, rate cases, and regional transmission plans. Rather, they can take proactive action – as outlined in this new resource – to manage load growth and a changing grid for the benefit of all customers.