The PJM Interconnection and stakeholders recently began an accelerated process to find consensus on how to integrate large load customers rapidly and reliably without risking an electricity supply shortage.
“We need to take a serious look at where things are headed in the coming years from the standpoint of our supply and demand balance,” Stu Bresler, Executive Vice President – Market Services and Strategy, said in opening comments. “We remain open to any and all alternatives to address what we believe is a very significant issue.”
Tim Horger, Sr. Director, Forward Market Operations & Performance Compliance, presented a Problem Statement and Issue Charge along with an initial proposal and alternatives PJM had considered.
Stakeholders’ extensive feedback after two preparatory workshops have and will continue to shape PJM’s proposal, Horger said. He encouraged stakeholders to create and submit their own proposals as part of the Critical Issue Fast Path (CIFP) process.
The meeting constituted Stage 1 of the CIFP, a decision-making method devised by stakeholders for major issues with known PJM and/or FERC implementation deadlines, and that would be difficult to resolve within the normal stakeholder process.
The CIFP for Large Load Additions was implemented by the Board of Managers in an Aug. 8 letter (PDF) from Chair David Mills. He noted that PJM’s 2025 Long-Term Load Forecast projects a peak load growth of 32 GW from 2024 to 2030, with all but 2 GW coming from data centers.
“This onrush of demand has created significant upward pricing pressure and has raised future resource adequacy concerns,” Mills said.
Horger shared four objectives for the CIFP process:
• Create new ways for new large loads to connect as quickly as possible and at the same time determine a plan for how reliability is maintained in the case of a resource adequacy shortage.
• Create incentives and pathways for incremental loads planning to connect to the system to more directly support rapid build-out of new supply to serve their needs.
• Enable more efficient use of the grid by increasing demand flexibility.
• Respect jurisdictional lines with states and commercial arrangements between load serving entities and their customers.
Optimally, any solution that receives consensus would be filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in December and would be available before the capacity auction for the 2028/2029 Delivery Year.
PJM’s initial proposal introduced the concept of Non-Capacity Backed Load (NCBL) as well as narrowly focused efforts related to generation interconnection and load forecasting.
PJM is willing to evolve its proposal, drop elements or incorporate new proposed concepts, Horger said.
When significant new load emerges faster than new generation, the PJM proposal would include options for large load to bring its own generation or participate in demand response. It would create NCBL service, which would credit new large loads for agreeing to come off the system in an emergency.
Because it would not be backed by capacity, the load would not be included in the capacity auction, which could provide cost savings to customers.
The next CIFP for Large Load Additions meeting is scheduled for Oct. 1.
In all, there will be four stages, culminating with a vote at the Members Committee before a solution is reviewed by the Board of Managers.
