PJM's first intake under its revamped interconnection process drew in 220 GW, led by natural gas and storage. (PJM)
The context: This reformed Cycle process replaces first-come, first-served with first-ready, first-served. It requires upfront financial commitments and proof of site control before projects can even enter the queue (to avoid the clogged pipeline PJM faced in 2022).
The breakdown: Natural gas dominated at 105.8 GW—nearly half the total submissions. Next up: storage (67 GW), nuclear (17.9 GW), and solar (14.8 GW). And the "other" bucket (506 MW) on PJM’s list includes biomass, coal, methane…and fusion, for the first time.
PJM expects demand to climb by >30 GW between 2024 and 2030, steered largely by data centers. Now, PJM is piloting HyperQ, Google Tapestry's AI tool, to help speed up all those reviews.