Adds outcome of the non-binding PJM member votes with details throughout

By Laila Kearney

NEW YORK, June 30 (Reuters) - Members of the PJM Interconnection on Tuesday voted to advance a plan to source more electricity to serve the rising data center demand that threatens to overtake regional electricity supplies on the largest U.S. power grid.

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. That has thrown off a supply-and-demand balance needed to reliably and affordably supply power to the 65 million people in PJM's footprint.

The 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 cast non-binding votes on more than a dozen proposals for how to supply data centers through a so-called "backstop procurement" process. One plan, proposed by data center advocates and major regulated electric utilities, advanced.

That plan suggested a procurement process that would begin on September 10, 2026 and close on November 20, 2026, which is what PJM had also proposed.

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.

The votes will inform the PJM board of managers, but the board ultimately chooses the policies and terms to move forward on.

Members also voted on proposals for how and whether 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.

The group did not vote to advance any of the proposals.