Power Play New Jersey Issues Statement on PJM Capacity Auction Results:

“The latest PJM capacity auction once again hit the negotiated cap intended to protect consumers from excessive electricity price increases, while simultaneously failing to secure enough electric generation capacity to meet the region's needs.The results show that demand for electricity, primarily driven by AI data centers, is not going anywhere. The bottom line is that unchecked data center load growth is making electricity unaffordable for New Jersey residents and businesses while also making our grid less reliable. We saw the effects of this in real-time during last week’s heatwave. PJM had to use nearly all of the emergency tools at its disposal to keep the lights on while electricity prices continued to soar.

The fact is, PJM has failed to act quickly to address the problem. At a minimum, PJM must institute a stronger process for connecting and managing large load users and, in the meantime, disallow interconnection of data centers that don’t bring their own clean energy to offset their demand on the system. At the same time, PJM must speed up the interconnection of new, lower cost renewable energy generation to the grid.”

You can read more on the Power Play NJ Substack: https://powerplaynj.substack.com/p/pjm-watch-another-one-hits-the-cap

Anjuli Ramos-Busot

Director

NJ Sierra Club

Winn Khuong

Executive Director

Action Together New Jersey

Allison McLeod (she/her/hers)

Interim Executive Director

New Jersey League of Conservation Voters

Doug O’Malley

Director

Environment New Jersey

Debra Coyle

Executive Director

NJ Work Environment Council

Drew Tompkins
Director of Policy and Advocacy
Jersey Renews