ER26-3380-000 · 2026-10-07 · U.S. Department of Energy

U.S. Department of Energy notice of intervention and statement of position supporting the September 29, 2026 backstop order

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
BEFORE THE 
FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION 
 
PJM Interconnection, L.L.C.                                    
Docket Nos. ER26-3380-000 
 
 
EL26-108-000 
    
 
NOTICE OF INTERVENTION AND STATEMENT OF POSITION OF 
THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 
 
President Donald J. Trump and the Department of Energy (DOE) are committed to 
ensuring that American households and businesses have affordable, reliable, and secure energy.  
On day one, President Trump declared a national energy emergency to fix the skyrocketing energy 
price inflation caused by the prior administration’s policies of reducing reliable, non-intermittent 
American energy resources.1  President Trump subsequently obtained the pledges of utilities, 
states, data center developers, and cooperatives to commit to his Ratepayer Protection Pledge.  
Under the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, large electric energy loads—not American households or 
other business ratepayers—must fund the electric energy generation and related infrastructure 
that such new large load projects require.2 
In furtherance of the President’s goals and in support of the Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission’s (Commission) September 29, 2026 order, the Secretary of Energy and DOE files 
this notice of intervention and statement of position in the captioned docket pursuant to section 
405 of the DOE Organization Act and Rule 214 of the Commission’s regulations.3  DOE 
specifically supports key aspects of the Commission’s guidance to PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. 
(PJM), including the counsel that PJM proactively address what the Commission has outlined by 
 
1 See Declaring a Nat’l Energy Emergency, Exec. Order No. 14,156, 90 Fed. Reg. 8433 (Jan. 29, 2025). 
2 See President Donald J. Trump, Ratepayer Protection Pledge, Proclamation No. 11014, 91 Fed. Reg. 11439 (Mar. 
9, 2026), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/03/09/2026-04645/ratepayer-protection-pledge 
[hereinafter Ratepayer Protection Pledge]. 
3 42 U.S.C. § 7175; 18 C.F.R. § 385.214(a)(1).

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submitting a revised tariff under Federal Power Act (FPA) section 205 on or before October 29, 
2026.4  PJM should implement the cost allocation and other reforms identified by the 
Commission to ensure that the costs of serving new data centers or other large electric energy 
loads are not unfairly shifted to PJM’s existing ratepayers.  DOE also calls for all signatories to 
the President’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge to stand by their commitments, including to “build, 
bring, or buy every kilowatt their facilities need—and cover every dollar of the infrastructure 
that delivers it.  American households and businesses should not be footing the bill.”5 
I. 
Statement of Principles Regarding PJM and President Trump’s Ratepayer 
Protection Pledge 
 
On January 16, 2026, DOE Secretary Chris Wright, U.S. Department of Interior 
Secretary Doug Burgum, and others joined the Governors of all 13 PJM states to announce the 
Statement of Principles Regarding PJM, which encouraged PJM to adopt market rules to 
strengthen grid reliability and reduce electricity costs for American families and businesses.  
Subsequently, following the February 24, 2026 State of the Union address, on March 4 and July 
23, 2026, President Trump, Secretary Wright, and others held roundtables regarding the 
Ratepayer Protection Pledge.  Signatory companies and others agreed to protect American 
consumers from price hikes due to their addition of large load energy demand and related 
infrastructure requirements, and to lower electricity costs for consumers in the long term.  Since 
then, additional signatories have joined the Ratepayer Protection Pledge. 
The Statement of Principles Regarding PJM, in turn, called for expeditious action to 
address reliability and affordability concerns specifically in the PJM region.  It called for 
accelerating the development of reliable generation resources, protecting ratepayers from rising 
 
4 16 U.S.C. § 824d. 
5 Ratepayer Protection Pledge, supra note 2.

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rates, and improving load forecasting and generator interconnection studies, among other 
reforms.6  It also specifically called for PJM to hold a backstop procurement auction by 
September 2026 and “file tariff revisions at FERC expeditiously,” noting that since PJM “has 
already received stakeholder input through the 2025 Critical Issues Fast Path (CIFP) process,” no 
further CIFP processes would be necessary.7 
On July 31, 2026, PJM filed a Reliability Backstop Procurement (RBP) proposal with the 
Commission in the captioned proceeding.  The RBP proposal calls for a one-time procurement of 
new capacity to address the significant capacity shortfall for the 2027/2028 and 2028/2029 
Reliability Pricing Model (RPM) auctions for those delivery years, with a requested effective 
date of September 29, 2026.8 
On September 29, 2026, the Commission issued its Order accepting certain aspects of 
PJM’s proposal.  The Commission determined that other portions of the proposal may be unjust 
and unreasonable, and, therefore, directed further procedures.9  Among other things, the 
Commission recognized “the looming capacity shortfall facing PJM” and the need for 
expeditious action to maintain resource adequacy.10  The Commission found that PJM’s existing 
reliability backstop provisions may be insufficient to prevent resource adequacy concerns and 
that PJM’s RPM is failing to keep pace with demand growth in the PJM region.11  The 
Commission recognized actions taken by President Trump to ensure that the costs of serving new 
data center load are assigned to that load and are not borne by other ratepayers.12  In making 
 
6 U.S. Dep’t of Energy, Statement of Principles Regarding PJM (Jan. 2026), 
https://www.energy.gov/documents/statement-principles-regarding-pjm.  
7 Id. 
8 PJM Interconnection, L.L.C., Dkt. No. ER26-3380-000 (filed July 31, 2026). 
9 See PJM Interconnection, L.L.C., 196 FERC ¶ 61,245 (2026). 
10 Id. P 3. 
11 Id. P 29. 
12 Id. P 161.

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further recommendations, the Commission emphasized that PJM’s RBP cost allocation 
methodology must be consistent with the Commission’s cost-causation principles.13 
II. 
Current State of Energy Demand in PJM Requires Immediate Action 
From 2020 to 2025, demand for electric energy in the United States has increased more 
than 9% (i.e., 387 terawatt-hours (TWh)), from 3,918 to 4,305 TWh.14  While this load growth 
occurred across residential, commercial, and industrial sectors, the commercial end-use sector 
grew the fastest.15  PJM is the largest grid operator in the country, serving 67 million people in 
13 states, plus the District of Columbia.  Over the same 2020 to 2025 period, consistent with the 
national trend cited above, total real-time energy use in PJM increased more than 9% (i.e., 67.9 
TWh), from approximately 743.0 TWh to 810.9 TWh.16  Every PJM annual long-term forecast 
since 2020 has projected increased long-term demand growth, with the projected growth rate 
accelerating sharply since 2022.17 
PJM’s capacity procurement procedures, however, are consistently failing to obtain 
adequate supply for the growth projected, let alone for the growth actually occurring.  PJM’s 
RPM has, as the Commission observed, “failed to keep pace with the unprecedented influx of 
large load” into the region.18  After years of auction delays, in December 2025, PJM fell 6,623 
 
13 See id. PP 153-157. 
14 See U.S. Energy Info. Admin., Elec. Power Annual, tbl. 1.3 (Supply & Disposition of Elec., 2014 Through 2024) 
(Oct. 16, 2025), https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/table.php?t=epa_01_03.html; id., Short-Term Energy 
Outlook, tbl. 7a (U.S. Elec. Indus. Overview) (Sep. 2026), https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/data/browser/#/?v=19. 
15 Id., Elec. Power Monthly, tbl. 5.1 (Sales of Elec. to Ultimate Customers: Total by End-Use Sector) (Sep. 24, 
2026), https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_1. 
16 See Monitoring Analytics, LLC, 2020 State of the Mkt. Rep. for PJM, vol. 1, tbl. 1-8 (Mar. 11, 2021), 
https://www.monitoringanalytics.com/reports/PJM_State_of_the_Market/2020/2020-som-pjm-vol1.pdf; id., 2025 
State of the Mkt. Rep. for PJM, vol. 1, tbl. 1-9 (Mar. 12, 2026), 
https://www.monitoringanalytics.com/reports/PJM_State_of_the_Market/2025/2025-som-pjm-vol1.pdf. 
17 See PJM, 2020 Load Forecast Rep. (2020); PJM Interconnection, L.L.C., 2021 Load Forecast Rep. (2021); PJM 
Interconnection, L.L.C., 2022 Load Forecast Rep. (2022); PJM Interconnection, L.L.C., 2023 Load Forecast Rep. 
(2023); PJM Interconnection, L.L.C., 2024 Load Forecast Rep. (2024); PJM Interconnection, L.L.C., 2025 Long-
Term Load Forecast Rep. (2025). 
18 PJM, 196 FERC ¶ 61,245 at P 29.

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MW short of its reliability requirement in its 2027/28 delivery year auction.19  PJM then fell 
6,831 MW short for its 2028/29 delivery year auction in July 2026.20  This places PJM in a worse 
position than was anticipated when the Statement of Principles Regarding PJM and the 
Ratepayer Protection Pledge were released in January and March 2026, respectively.  PJM’s 
inability to secure adequate capacity threatens grid reliability, energy security, and economic 
growth for the mid-Atlantic region, Appalachia, and beyond. 
III. 
Department of Energy Position 
DOE further commends the Commission for its efforts in a separate proceeding to require 
the six regional transmission organizations or independent system operators under its jurisdiction 
to justify or reform their rules governing how data centers, manufacturing facilities, and other 
large energy users connect to the electric grid.21 
DOE also supports PJM’s efforts, in this proceeding, to reform its open access 
transmission tariff.  DOE agrees with the Commission that PJM’s proposed tariff revisions may 
be unjust and unreasonable in certain material respects.  In particular, DOE believes that the 
revisions recommended by the Commission should be adopted by PJM to advance the principles 
of President Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge—a pledge to which many utilities and others 
in the PJM region have signed and committed.22  DOE urges PJM to act swiftly to reform its 
 
19 PJM, 2027/2028 Base Residual Auction Rep. (Dec. 17, 2025), https://www.pjm.com/-/media/DotCom/markets-
ops/rpm/rpm-auction-info/2027-2028/2027-2028-bra-report.pdf. 
20 PJM, 2028/2029 Base Residual Auction Rep. (July 14, 2026), https://www.pjm.com/-/media/DotCom/markets-
ops/rpm/rpm-auction-info/2028-2029/2028-2029-bra-results-report.pdf. 
21 PJM Interconnection, L.L.C., 195 FERC ¶ 61,211, errata notice, 196 FERC ¶ 61,122, granting abeyance, 196 
FERC ¶ 61,129 (2026); Midcontinent Indep. Sys. Operator, Inc., 195 FERC ¶ 61,212, errata notice, 196 FERC 
¶ 61,123, granting abeyance, 196 FERC ¶ 61,133 (2026); Sw. Power Pool, Inc., 195 FERC ¶ 61,213, granting 
abeyance, 196 FERC ¶ 61,128 (2026); Cal. Indep. Sys. Operator Corp., 195 FERC ¶ 61,214, granting recission and 
abeyance, 196 FERC ¶ 61,131 (2026); ISO New Eng. Inc., 195 FERC ¶ 61,215, granting abeyance, 196 FERC 
¶ 61,132 (2026); N.Y. Indep. Sys. Operator, Inc., 195 FERC ¶ 61,216 granting abeyance, 196 FERC ¶ 61,130 
(2026). 
22 See Ratepayer Protection Pledge, supra note 2.

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RBP proposal in accordance with the Commission’s guidance and submit those revisions 
pursuant to FPA section 205.23  DOE encourages all Ratepayer Protection Pledge signatories to 
endorse such further reforms. 
A. Cost Allocation That Avoids Free Ridership  
DOE shares the Commission’s concerns that PJM’s proposed RBP cost allocation model 
may be unjust and unreasonable as filed.  The Commission found that PJM did not adequately 
demonstrate that its Load Adjustment methodology would allocate RBP costs consistent with the 
Commission’s cost-causation principle.  This principle requires that “all Commission-
jurisdictional rates and charges must ‘reflect to some degree the costs actually caused by the 
customer who pays for them’ and costs must be allocated in a manner that is at least roughly 
commensurate with benefits.”24  Compliance with this principle is evaluated by comparing the 
costs assessed against a party to the burdens imposed or benefits drawn by that party.  In 
furtherance of the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, DOE emphasizes the need to protect ratepayers 
from the costs associated with rising demand caused by other large load customers.  Such costs 
include the negative reliability impacts caused by new load growth that well-exceed historic 
forecasts. 
The Commission recognizes the need for accurate and comprehensive load information.25  
By way of example, because large load demand in PJM exceeded forecasts for a number of years 
prior to the 2026/2027 and 2028/2029 delivery years, PJM’s cost allocation methodology 
(looking back only two years) does not appear to sufficiently allocate the costs of new capacity 
to serve all large loads that have caused the current resource adequacy shortfall.  DOE agrees 
 
23 See, e.g., PJM, 196 FERC ¶ 61,245 at P 160. 
24 KN Energy Inc. v. FERC, 968 F.2d 1295, 1300 (D.C. Cir. 1992); see also Ky. Pub. Serv. Comm’n v. Am. Elec. 
Power Serv. Corp., 193 FERC ¶ 61,110 (2025). 
25 PJM, 196 FERC ¶ 61,245 at P 154.

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that PJM’s tariff may omit large loads already included in PJM’s baseline forecast.  Such a result 
is at tension with both traditional cost-causation principles and President Trump’s Ratepayer 
Protection Pledge.  To address this concern, PJM should ensure that any cost allocation 
methodology properly allocates costs and does not result in free ridership. 
B.  Mandatory Large Load Identification and Transparency 
DOE agrees with the Commission’s call for improved large load identification and 
transparency to support a just and reasonable cost allocation.  To ensure that existing ratepayers 
do not bear the costs of new large loads, PJM should have sufficient data to accurately identify 
the material large load projects reflected in its forecasts and monitor their development.  A 
capability to continuously track whether a project enters into service—and therefore benefits 
from the capacity and system investments procured to serve it—or is delayed, reduced, or 
cancelled, can help assign costs for new generation to the customers responsible for those 
investments. 
The Commission recommends that “PJM should employ the most up-to-date load and 
resources forecasts to inform the Initial RBP Target.”26  DOE agrees.  Without up-to-date and 
project-level identification, PJM cannot reliably reconcile its base forecast with Load 
Adjustments, avoid omissions and double counting, revise the RBP target when forecast load 
fails to materialize, or attribute demand growth to the appropriate zone and load-serving entity. 
C. Enable the Ratepayer Protection Pledge’s “Build, Bring, or Buy” Principle 
The Commission accepted PJM’s framework for crediting qualifying new capacity 
brought forward to serve new large load against the RBP target.  DOE supports this framework.  
New large loads should be able to meet their reliability needs by building qualifying new supply, 
 
26 Id. P 159.

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bringing qualifying new capacity to the system elsewhere, or contracting for qualifying new 
capacity.  There is substantial interest among market participants in this approach, as 
demonstrated in comments in this docket.  However, PJM’s current RBP process does not 
establish a clear path for such optionality and should be revised to do so. 
IV. 
Responsive Action 
DOE urges PJM to accept the accelerated option proposed by the Commission and to 
swiftly submit a revised tariff pursuant to FPA section 205 on or before October 29, 2026.  DOE 
likewise encourages the numerous signatories to President Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge 
participating in these dockets directly, or indirectly through the filings of trade associations, to 
support further reforms consistent with the Ratepayer Protection Pledge and DOE’s 
recommendations herein.  Americans deserve reliable, secure, and affordable energy.  The 
growth of data centers and other industrial or commercial sector large loads is essential to 
America’s economic prosperity and a foundation of modern life.  It is also essential that large 
load entities calling for that power pay for it—and the infrastructure required to deliver it. 
Respectfully submitted, 
 
 
Jonathan D. Brightbill 
General Counsel 
U.S. Department of Energy 
1000 Independence Avenue, SW 
Washington, D.C.  20585 
(202) 586-5281 
doegeneralcounsel@hq.doe.gov 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
/s/ Jonathan Brightbill

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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 
 
I hereby certify that I have this day served the foregoing document upon each person  
designated on the official service list compiled by the Secretary in this proceeding. 
 
 
Dated at Washington, D.C., this 7th day of October, 2026. 
 
 
 
Jonathan Brightbill 
General Counsel 
U.S. Department of Energy 
1000 Independence Ave., SW 
Washington, D.C.  20585 
(202) 586-5281 
doegeneralcounsel@hq.doe.gov 
 
 
/s/ Jonathan Brightbill