US panel approves PJM's registry of data centers, rejects plan to curtail power to them

By Laila Kearney

NEW YORK, Oct 12 (Reuters) - US energy regulators said the country's biggest power grid -- PJM Interconnection -- can begin developing a database on Monday to track data centers, whose rapid expansion has driven up prices and threatened the reliability of the grid covering 67 million people, according to a regulatory filing.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, in an order filed on Friday, rejected other central parts of a plan by PJM to manage data centers by temporarily shutting off grid power to the server warehouses to avoid blackouts in times of high energy demand.

The database approved by FERC could help the grid plan for the growth of data centers by revealing details about facilities like energy providers, in-service dates and power ramping-up schedules, as well as backup generation, fuel sources and location.

FERC said that PJM could submit a revised curtailment plan but would need to address various issues, including why data centers would be temporarily shut off from the grid before other large energy users.

PJM has been overwhelmed by an onslaught of data center electricity demand, which the grid operator forecasts to triple by 2030 to about 29 gigawatts of capacity in its Midwest and Mid-Atlantic territory.

The rising demand has butted up against years of dwindling net electricity supplies in the region, contributing to a more than 1,000% increase in capacity costs in PJM since 2024 and a 6.8 gigawatt shortfall that could lead to blackouts.

In an attempt to manage data center demand, PJM has put several proposals before FERC.

In August, PJM proposed requiring new data center customers of 50 megawatts or greater in size pay to add new power supplies -- enough to cover the full electricity needs of the server warehouses -- or risk being shut off from the grid during times of power emergencies.

FERC rejected PJM's core plan of curtailing data center grid access during peak demand, saying that it strayed outside the grid operator's authority.

In its same August filing, PJM also proposed tracking those data centers, for which very few details about energy use have been provided to the grid.