Data Center Load Is Driving Capacity Costs — and Risk of Blackouts

WASHINGTON / RICHMOND — The Independent Market Monitor for PJM told federal energy regulators that the region’s capacity crisis is not a mystery. It is data centers.

In a complaint filed November 25, 2025, at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC accession 20251125-5275), Monitoring Analytics, LLC — acting as PJM’s Independent Market Monitor — argued that PJM is proposing to interconnect large new data center loads that cannot be served reliably. The result, the Monitor wrote, would be load curtailments: blackouts of the data centers themselves or of other customers. That outcome, the filing says, is inconsistent with PJM’s basic duty to maintain a reliable grid and is therefore unjust and unreasonable.

The Monitor asked FERC to rule that PJM may add large new data center loads only when those loads can be served reliably on both transmission and capacity metrics. Without that clarification, the complaint argues, stakeholders cannot write workable rules for the wave of large loads now seeking interconnection.

The numbers in the filing are the kind that show up on household bills long after a county board cuts a ribbon. The Monitor states that data center load growth is the primary reason for recent and expected capacity-market stress — tight supply, high prices, and forecast load growth. Inclusion of existing and forecast data center load in the 2026 peak load forecast, the complaint says, produced about a $7.27 billion increase — an 82.1 percent jump — in capacity market revenues for the 2026/2027 Base Residual Auction. Across the 2025/2026 and 2026/2027 auctions combined, the Monitor attributes roughly $16.6 billion in higher capacity revenues to existing and forecast data center load. Those impacts grow as price caps from a temporary settlement fade in later auctions.

PJM’s Critical Issue Fast Path process on large load additions, which ran from mid-August through mid-November 2025, did not settle the core premise, according to the Monitor. Many proposals assume PJM must accept large loads even when capacity is short, including Non-Capacity-Backed Load concepts that contemplate mandatory curtailments. The Monitor’s reply is blunt: if PJM must serve all loads reliably, it is not just and reasonable to add new loads it cannot serve.

For Virginians, the federal complaint is not distant alphabet soup. Dominion’s Golden-Mars case at the State Corporation Commission (PUR-2025-00056) sits inside the same physical market. Loudoun resident Theresa Ghiorzi’s February 2026 post-hearing brief expressly ties Golden-Mars — which would enable dozens of additional data center delivery points in eastern Loudoun — to the Monitor’s warning. SCC staff comments she cites describe energy demand in the alley as seeming “insatiable” and speak of an “avalanche” of delivery-point requests.

The political half of the story remains local. Loudoun’s Democratic supervisors spent years voting data centers onto the map and into by-right pipelines. Statewide, Democratic votes have been the primary engine placing these facilities into existence. The IMM complaint is what happens when that land-use machine meets a regional grid that cannot print gigawatts on demand. Transmission cases socialize the wires; capacity auctions socialize the shortage. Ordinary customers pay twice — once for corridors and again for capacity clearing prices — while the industry that Democratic boards courted keeps filing for the next campus.

FERC has not, in the materials provided here, issued a final merits order resolving the Monitor’s asks. What the complaint already establishes is the Monitor’s formal position: reliability is job one, data center load is the main driver of the current squeeze, and connecting loads the grid cannot serve is not an acceptable planning philosophy. Virginians living next to 500 kV proposals, and Virginians nowhere near Loudoun who still buy power inside PJM, have every reason to treat that filing as a warning siren — not a footnote.

Email the Board of Supervisors at:
Phyllis J. Randall (Chair, At-Large) – Phyllis.Randall@loudoun.gov,
Michael R. Turner (Vice Chair, Ashburn District) – Mike.Turner@loudoun.gov,
Juli E. Briskman (Algonkian District) – Juli.Briskman@loudoun.gov,
Sylvia R. Glass (Broad Run District) – Sylvia.Glass@loudoun.gov,
Caleb Kershner (Catoctin District) – caleb.kershner@loudoun.gov,
Matthew F. Letourneau (Dulles District) – Matt.Letourneau@loudoun.gov,
Kristen C. Umstattd (Leesburg District) – Kristen.Umstattd@loudoun.gov,
Laura A. TeKrony (Little River District) – Laura.TeKrony@loudoun.gov,
Koran Saines (Sterling District) – Koran.Saines@loudoun.gov

Email the Loudoun County School Board:
April Chandler, april.chandler@lcps.org,
Anne Donohue, anne.donohue@lcps.org,
Deana Griffiths, deana.griffiths@lcps.org,
Ross Svenson, ross.stevenson@lcps.org,
Kari LaBell, kari.labell@lcps.org,
Jon Pepper, jonathon.pepper@lcps.org,
Lauren Shernoff, lauren.shernoff@lcps.org,
Sumera Rashid, sumera.rashid@lcps.org,
Amy Riccardi, amy.riccardi@lcps.org,