Washington — The Trump administration and a bipartisan group of governors called for reforms in the largest electric grid in the country to make sure the development of new artificial intelligence plants doesn’t drive up electric costs.
Federal and state officials signed onto a statement of principles that’s focused on the PJM Interconnection grid, which serves over 67 million people in 13 states in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest. The pact calls on technology companies to foot the bill for new power plants in PJM’s region, to address the surge of artificial intelligence data centers that the White House wants to see built. The administration says the National Energy Dominance Council reached an agreement with several states for over $15 billion in new power-generation projects.
The statement also calls on PJM to hold an emergency capacity auction for this power — and to protect residential customers from capacity price increases.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum signed onto the plan near the White House, at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building with Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Democratic Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.
Wright said in a statement that President Trump had “asked governors across the Mid-Atlantic to come together and call upon PJM to allow America to build big reliable power plants again.”
He promised that the directives would “restore affordable and reliable electricity so American families thrive and America’s manufacturing industries once again boom.”
PJM’s grid serves over 65 million people and operates in parts or all of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, North Carolina, Delaware, Kentucky and Tennessee. Governors from every state signed onto the statement of principles.
The Board of Managers for PJM announced Friday it would take actions to address the additional load to the grid new AI data centers would bring. It says they’d have an “immediate initiation” to secure more power, and hold a “backstop generation procurement process to address short-term reliability needs.”
PJM’s announcement also says it expects the “data center community … to play a constructive role in addressing the reliability and affordability challenges associated with the scale and pace of the forecasted load additions in the PJM region.”
Friday’s announcement also revealed a little bipartisanship between the Republican White House and potential 2028 presidential Democratic candidates Moore and Shapiro, who have both been calling for an increased power supply and lower energy prices.
“We cannot build a 21st-century economy on an energy market that blocks new supply,” Moore said in a statement. “This moment calls for urgency. Maryland families and businesses must be served by a reliable grid without shouldering the cost of sky-high energy bills.”
Shapiro sued PJM in 2024 to stop price hikes, and said he’s been working with governors and federal energy officials for months to push PJM to make reforms.
“I’m glad the White House is following Pennsylvania’s lead and adopting the solutions we’ve been pushing for,” Shapiro said in a statement.
