Regional transmission organization
Appears in 17 stories · Last updated Nov 4, 2026
Must approve the Piketon 765-kV projects before construction
American Electric Power selected Jacobs to manage delivery of the eastern half of a $37 billion transmission program, the companies said Oct. 29. Jacobs will handle project controls, engineering, siting, right-of-way acquisition and environmental review across seven states for five years. WSP USA holds the matching role across four western states.
Updated Nov 3
Market where most of the acquired capacity sits
Vistra finished buying Cogentrix Energy on October 30, adding ten natural gas plants and 5,496 megawatts to a fleet that now reaches nearly 50,000 megawatts. The deal was announced in January at a net price of about $4.0 billion.
Updated Nov 1
Approval gate for the Piketon project
American Electric Power signed 15 gigawatts of new customer load in a single quarter, and about nine in ten gigawatts of its contracted pipeline is tied to data centers. On October 29 it handed the wiring to two engineering firms: Jacobs for seven eastern states, WSP USA for four western ones.
Grid operator where the Google-Voltus VPP operates
Google and Voltus have added 1,070 megawatts of virtual power plant capacity across PJM, on top of the 100 megawatts they signed in June. Google calls the result a 1-gigawatt plant; the combined total is about 1.17 gigawatts.
Updated Oct 28
Operating the 13-state grid while weighing its Bring Your Own Power proposal
Google and Constellation Energy signed a 20-year power purchase agreement on October 6 covering 3,590 megawatts on the PJM grid, the largest US power market. Of that, 890 megawatts is new capacity from efficiency upgrades at 11 reactors in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Updated Oct 22
One of two grid operators bordering Indiana
Indiana has won $175 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to widen a bottleneck where the Midcontinent Independent System Operator's grid meets PJM Interconnection. Officials announced the award at the Statehouse in Indianapolis on September 24.
Updated Oct 19
Grid operator running the fast-track process
On October 8, PJM Interconnection accepted its first three fast-track grid connections: 1.66 gigawatts of battery storage from Engie and a 455-megawatt gas-plant uprate from LS Power. All three are expected online by mid-2029.
Must rewrite interconnection and co-location rules under FERC order; facing governance reform debates
Data centers found a shortcut: park next to a generator and drink power without waiting years for grid upgrades. In December 2025, FERC ordered PJM to rewrite its tariff so co-located mega-load can't stay invisible to planning and cost responsibility. In June 2026, FERC expanded the push, ordering six grid operators to justify or overhaul how they connect AI data centers.
Updated Oct 16
As of September 2026: Grid operator connecting the project and serving Google's data centers
Google is buying the electricity from a $350 million solar-plus-storage project on a reclaimed West Virginia coal mine. Developer MN8 Energy will pair 86 megawatts of solar with lithium-ion batteries and the state's first commercial-scale zinc long-duration storage system.
Updated Sep 4
As of July 2026: Operating under federal emergency orders through July 3, 2026 amid near-record demand
Seventy percent of America's power lines and transformers are over 25 years old. On June 30, 2026, Secretary Wright issued two emergency orders for the Mid-Atlantic grid after PJM Interconnection forecast demand near 166,000 megawatts—approaching the region's all-time record.
Updated Jul 3
As of June 2026: Running record-high capacity auctions while load growth outpaces new supply
Pennsylvania power bills jumped on June 1 as utilities passed through record wholesale prices set by PJM Interconnection, the grid operator for 67 million people across 13 states. PECO's commercial supply charge rose roughly 15 percent, with PPL Electric, Duquesne Light, and FirstEnergy's four Pennsylvania utilities also raising rates.
Updated Jun 1
As of May 2026: Piloting AI for interconnection queue management
America's power grid was built largely in the mid-twentieth century for a world that no longer exists. Today it faces electricity demand rising at the fastest rate in decades, driven by data centers, electric vehicles, and manufacturing reshoring. The grid must connect 2.6 terawatts of new power projects—more than twice its current capacity—but new transmission lines take a decade or more to build.
Updated May 29
As of May 2026: Managing rapid demand growth and generation queue
West Virginia has no base-load natural gas power plants online. Governor Patrick Morrisey announced that Calpine, a Constellation Energy subsidiary, will build a $1 billion, 500-megawatt gas plant in Marshall County as part of $4.2 billion in energy investments. The investments, drawn in just four weeks, aim to transform a coal-dependent economy into what Morrisey calls 'the battery of the East Coast.'
Updated May 22
As of May 2026: Requesting and receiving emergency orders
Between 1977 and 2000, the Energy Secretary used Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act exactly zero times; since May 2025, it has been invoked more than 40 times. On May 22, Secretary Chris Wright added another, directing Talen Energy to run a 54-year-old oil-fired unit outside Baltimore beyond its environmental run cap from now through August 19.
As of May 2026: Managing grid stress from data center expansion
For decades, American households paid roughly the same share of electricity costs regardless of which industries were expanding. AI data centers have broken that arrangement.
Updated May 20
As of May 2026: Struggling to meet demand as capacity prices hit records
America's power grid faces its biggest stress test in decades as data centers running AI models consumed 183 terawatt-hours in 2024, enough to power Pakistan for a year, and that figure is expected to more than double by 2030. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta are pouring $370 billion into new facilities, and the grid can't keep up.
Updated May 16
As of May 2026: Facing unprecedented capacity shortfall and reliability crisis driven by data center demand
Since late 2022, U.S. regulators and utilities have warned that AI-optimized data centers could reshape national power demand, ending an era of flat electricity consumption and forcing rapid buildout of generation and transmission. By early 2026, those warnings have crystallized into concrete challenges. PJM Interconnection's December 2025 capacity auction hit the $333.44/MW-day price cap and failed to meet reliability requirements for the first time in its history. Data centers accounted for $6.5 billion—or 40%—of the auction's $16.4 billion in costs.
Updated May 10
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