In terms of electricity, a huge swath of the US encompassing 13 states was, for many years, the proverbial land of plenty. From Illinois to New Jersey to North Carolina, the area covered by PJM Interconnection LLC had more than enough power to get by.
But that picture is changing rapidly as data center developers flock to the nation’s largest grid to satisfy the needs of the artificial intelligence boom.
There’s no longer any spare power supply to feed the city-sized data campuses under development, PJM’s independent market watchdog said last week. Tech companies will need to bring their own generating plants.
There are signs of stress already. During the past five weeks, PJM issued nine level 1 energy emergency alerts, indicating it’s concerned about maintaining adequate power reserves. By comparison, there was a just a single alert last summer.
The season marks peak consumption for US power suppliers. Unsurprisingly, PJM’s first warning this year came in late June, when extreme heat sent electricity demand soaring to a 14-year high.
But not all the alerts have come during periods of high temperatures. There were two earlier this month attributed primarily to unplanned power plant outages.
PJM continued operating smoothly after each alert, but the frequency of the notices — plus warnings that generators need to be ready to bring on emergency supplies — underscore how stretched the system is.
The issue was further underlined last week when PJM posted results from its annual capacity auction. Payouts to generators and other suppliers soared to a record $16.1 billion for the year starting June 2026.
Adding to the concern was the auction’s 208.7-megawatt shortfall. While that amount pales in comparison to the more than 134 gigawatts that were secured, it was the first time the auction didn’t meet its target, according to Monitoring Analytics, the PJM watchdog.
“The reliability threat is not on the future horizon,” Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Mark Christie said last week. “It is actually here now.”
China’s proposed coal mine additions risk creating an oversupply and derailing climate goals, according to Global Energy Monitor. More than 450 sites are in development, with about 40% under construction or in test operation, according to the California-based researcher, which promotes clean energy use. If all are built, their combined capacity of 1.35 billion tons a year would surpass Indonesia and Australia, the biggest exporters.
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