PJM is trying to move 250-megawatt projects through the queue in ten months. Virginia and Indiana are passing laws to unlock spare interconnection rights at existing plants. Philadelphia customers are opening winter bills that look like economic weather alerts.
The throughline is speed. Demand is rising faster than infrastructure. The system is improvising.
Major Stories
PJM REFORM
Fast-Track Interconnection and Capacity Price Collar
PJM asked FERC to approve two key components of its reliability strategy: an Expedited Interconnection Track (EIT) and an extension of its capacity auction price collar.
Under the expedited track, PJM would fast-track up to 10 projects per year, each at least 250 MW, provided they are backed by a state’s primary siting authority and can come online within three years. PJM estimates roughly 10 months from filing to interconnection agreement. The program would sunset at the end of 2027.
On the capacity side, PJM proposed extending its price collar for the 2028/29 and 2029/30 delivery years. The proposal sets a cap around $325/MW-day and a floor around $175/MW-day. Without the extension, the next auction cap would approach $550/MW-day. PJM argues the collar reduces volatility while it develops a longer-term reliability backstop procurement.
Because of earlier auction delays, the upcoming delivery years have shorter forward periods — 23 and 29 months — limiting the ability of new builds to respond to price signals.
Why It Matters - For the grid: PJM is effectively admitting that its standard queue and auction cadence cannot deliver new supply fast enough to rely purely on market signals.
For this audience: extending a price collar is a recognition that scarcity pricing may be economically logical but politically combustible.
GridTake - This is not a free-market correction. It’s managed scarcity. PJM is attempting to accelerate select supply while dampening price signals that would otherwise scream “build more.” That tension will define the next two years.
INTERCONNECTION POLICY
Virginia and Indiana Push Surplus Interconnection
Lawmakers in Virginia and Indiana passed legislation to expand use of Surplus Interconnection Service (SIS) — allowing new generation or storage to use existing interconnection rights at operating facilities.
Virginia’s FAST Act requires utilities to assess available surplus capacity and launch pilot programs for storage and solar using existing interconnection rights. Indiana’s SB 240 requires utilities to evaluate SIS opportunities in integrated resource plans and, beginning in 2030, analyze SIS as an alternative before building new plants.
SIS projects are studied outside normal interconnection cycles and typically take under a year, compared to multiple years for standard queue review. In one cited example, a traditional solar project faced $333/kW in interconnection costs, while a nearby SIS project faced less than $1/kW.
While SPP and MISO have thousands of megawatts in surplus queues, PJM has lagged. States inside PJM’s footprint are now applying legislative pressure to unlock that pathway.
Why It Matters - For the grid: surplus interconnection is one of the few mechanisms capable of adding capacity without waiting on greenfield transmission projects.
For this audience: this is cost containment disguised as modernization — reuse steel, avoid new rate base fights.
GridTake - SIS is not revolutionary. It’s opportunistic. But opportunism matters when the alternative is a five-year queue and a rate case.
AFFORDABILITY
Philly Winter Bills Spike
Extended cold weather pushed residential energy use sharply higher in the Philadelphia region. PECO reported roughly 12% higher electricity usage and 19% higher gas usage compared to typical January levels over the past decade. Philadelphia Gas Works saw usage spike roughly 40% during a late-January cold snap.
Higher consumption compounded recent rate increases and supply volatility. Utilities also pointed to growing regional demand, including from energy-intensive data centers.
Why It Matters - For the grid: winter peaks still anchor capacity planning, and higher peak usage reinforces the value of firm generation.
For this audience: affordability pressure is the political accelerant behind every reliability filing now landing at FERC.
GridTake - Cold snaps clarify debates. In February, ideology yields to thermodynamics.
COMMENTARY
C3 News: Populism’s War on Capacity
In C3 News this week, I argued that the dominant political instinct in 2026 is not to build more capacity but to manage who gets less of it. Data centers are increasingly framed as the problem — they bid up capacity prices, distort markets, and threaten reliability. The reflex response is regulatory containment: carve-outs, restrictions, socialized cost allocation, and procedural slowdowns.
But electricity demand is rising from multiple fronts: electrification, reshoring, industrial growth, AI infrastructure. The grid can respond in one of two ways — expand supply, or ration access.
The piece argues that capacity building used to be America’s reflex. Dams. Pipelines. Transmission corridors. Power plants. Today the reflex is smaller: gatekeeping, price dampening, political arbitration.
Why It Matters - For the grid: constraining large loads does not eliminate demand growth; it merely redistributes strain.
For this audience: the debate is no longer about climate or tech optimism — it is about whether the U.S. remains structurally capable of scaling infrastructure.
GridTake - You can’t regulate your way into abundance. The system either expands or it tightens. If capacity becomes a political target rather than a policy objective, scarcity stops being temporary.
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The Conversation
Quick Signals
Fast-track is the new normal. When a 10-month interconnection timeline sounds revolutionary, you know the baseline process is broken.
Price collars are political instruments. PJM isn’t suppressing volatility because markets misbehave — it’s because ratepayer shock travels faster than new steel.
Surplus interconnection is brownfield capitalism. Reuse what’s already wired, avoid five years of studies, and skip the rate case.
Demand growth is not hypothetical anymore. AI load, electrification, industrial reshoring — the forecasts have moved from slides to filings.
Affordability is the accelerant. Nothing forces reform like February bills landing in March mailboxes.
Things to Read
Bloomberg on California quietly reconsidering nuclear as AI demand collides with supply constraints. When the most climate-forward state in the country starts blinking on baseload, you know the math has changed.
BBC on how global power infrastructure strain is reshaping energy politics. Less culture war, more physics.
New York Post on New York still haunted by the closure of Indian Point as energy bills climb. Shutting down 2,000 MW of zero-carbon baseload without a firm replacement plan tends to linger.
RealClearEnergy arguing America must win the AI race by building more power. It’s industrial policy dressed as patriotism, but the build-more premise is hard to ignore.
Mother Jones attempting to decode the strange politics of energy, renewables, and identity. It’s the usual worldview blender — capitalism bad, vibes important — but worth reading to understand the cultural narrative shaping ratepayer debates.
C3 News (yours truly) on populism’s war on capacity and the temptation to ration instead of build. If scarcity is a policy choice, so is abundance.
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