PJM Auction Secures 138,318 MW of Capacity at $325 per Megawatt-Day Price Cap

PJM Interconnection's 2028/2029 Base Residual Auction secured 138,318 MW of unforced capacity and demand response but left the grid 6,831 MW below its reliability requirement. Regions operating under the Fixed Resource Requirement added 10,864 MW, bringing total available capacity to 149,182 MW.

The shortfall is the third consecutive year the entire PJM region has missed the one-event-in-10-year standard and the first time the full RTO has fallen short in its history.

The auction cleared at the price cap of $325 per megawatt-day, 2.5 percent below the prior year's cap of $333.44. PJM established the price collar in coordination with the governors of its 13 states and FERC. Without the cap, most regions would have cleared at $554.72 per megawatt-day and the COMED LDA at $776.69.

PJM plans to seek FERC approval for a special Backstop Procurement in September to address the gap. Payouts to generators for the delivery year beginning June 2028 reached $16.4 billion. PJM CEO David Mills said the results show demand growing faster than supply and that the operator is working with government and industry leaders to add generation and manage new load.

Monitoring Analytics reported that PJM power prices rose 76 percent in the first quarter amid data-center demand. A FERC conference on grid governance is scheduled for July 23.