By Laila Kearney

NEW YORK, June 30 (Reuters) - Members of the PJM Interconnection are scheduled to vote on Tuesday on one of the biggest issues facing the largest U.S. grid operator: how to manage the rising data center demand that threatens to overtake regional electricity supplies.

PJM has seen an explosion of requests over roughly the last two years by Big Tech and developers to connect energy-intensive data centers to the grid that covers 13 states and the District of Columbia, which has thrown off a supply-and-demand balance needed to reliably and affordably supply power to the 65 million people in PJM's footprint.

That imbalance has sent PJM capacity prices, which are paid to power plants to ensure they supply enough power to the grid during peak demand times, soaring by more than 1,000% since roughly 2024.

Voting members of PJM on Tuesday will attempt to decide on protocols for how to supply data centers, how to curtail their power use at times of stress on the grid, and who pays for some of the measures to quickly connect and manage the server warehouses.

PJM has proposed allowing data centers to either pay to add new power supplies to the grid to cover their energy use or to agree to have their electricity shut off when electricity use on the overall grid rises high enough, in an effort to avoid broader blackouts.

Another potential outcome of the meeting is a firm decision on when the "backstop" procurement will be held. While PJM is encouraging long-term contracting between data centers and power providers, any shortfall will potentially need to be covered by the procurement process.

Members are due to vote at around 2:30 p.m. EDT.