{"id":269304,"date":"2026-08-21T05:40:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T05:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/269304\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T05:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T05:40:16","slug":"pjm-wants-data-centers-to-bring-their-own-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/269304\/","title":{"rendered":"PJM wants data centers to bring their own power.\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lots of other states are passing laws and crafting regulations aimed at locking data centers into paying these kinds of costs<\/a>, including several in PJM territory, like Illinois<\/a>, Indiana<\/a>, New Jersey<\/a>, Ohio<\/a>, and Virginia<\/a>. Few, if any, have taken explicit steps to align their regulatory regimes with PJM\u2019s pending proposals, Lang-Ree said, although Illinois utility ComEd recently proposed an \u200b\u201cinterruptible\u201d tariff that could match up with the curtailment provisions proposed by\u00a0PJM.<\/p>\n

To be clear, Shapiro\u2019s executive order doesn\u2019t bar data centers that fail to comply with these requirements from pursuing development in the state. Instead, it allows those data centers that sign a\u00a0consent order with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to receive preferential siting and permitting treatment. Those that don\u2019t will likely face lengthy review and potential opposition from local and state authorities.<\/p>\n

Although the governor can\u2019t directly order around the Pennsylvania PUC, since it\u2019s an independent agency, PUC Chair Stephen DeFrank backed Shapiro\u2019s plan at a\u00a0Tuesday press conference, saying that Pennsylvanians \u200b\u201cshould not be asked to subsidize infrastructure needed to serve some of the largest energy users in the\u00a0world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Data Center Coalition, which represents developers of the computing facilities, expressed general support for the executive order. But Dan Diorio, the group\u2019s executive vice president of state policy and government affairs, warned that \u200b\u201cit\u2019s important that rules are not changed midstream impacting ongoing investment in verified and responsible data center projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clean energy also gets a\u00a0boost under Shapiro\u2019s plan, which orders the Department of Environmental Protection to find ways to make it faster and easier for developers to build clean power on brownfields and previously developed land.<\/p>\n

It also requires data centers that sign the consent order<\/a> to secure an increasing percentage of their power from a\u00a0defined set of carbon-free resources over the next decade, starting at 10% in 2027 and rising to 32% in\u00a02035.<\/p>\n

Separate legislation promoted by Shapiro, which has passed the Democratic-controlled state House<\/a> but not yet the Republican-controlled Senate, also calls on state regulators to place limits on diesel generators. That\u2019s an important safeguard against data centers using the highly polluting equipment to ride through times when they\u2019re cut off from grid power, said Tom Schuster, director of the Sierra Club\u2019s Pennsylvania chapter.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not yet clear how policies like these could spur data centers to seek out clean-energy resources to meet their peak needs, the NRDC\u2019s Lang-Ree said. Gigawatts of fossil gas plants are being proposed for data center hubs in Pennsylvania and across the country, driven by utilities and independent power companies seeking the go-to technology for generating round-the-clock power.<\/p>\n

But demand for new gas plants has driven up costs and pushed out timelines for completing new projects into the early 2030s. Meanwhile, large volumes of shovel-ready solar, wind, and battery projects that could help meet data center demand languish in PJM\u2019s clogged-up interconnection queue<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania does have more than 3\u00a0GW of energy projects that have secured rights to interconnect to the PJM grid, many of them solar, wind, and batteries, according to data from think tank RMI. Clean energy makes up the vast majority of new energy being built across the country, and those projects are both cheaper and faster to build than gas-fired power plants, Lang-Ree said \u2014 if states can streamline permitting to make it happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lots of other states are passing laws and crafting regulations aimed at locking data centers into paying these…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-269304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}