The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found Thursday that the rules of Eastern power market PJM don’t provide clear guidance to big technology companies wanting to co-locate enormous data centers with power plants.
The commission ordered the grid operator for 65 million Americans to tell FERC within 30 days how it can ensure, for example, that a natural gas generator built to serve a data center for Google or Microsoft doesn’t drive up costs for other energy consumers or trigger other problems on the grid.
The review FERC says it will undertake could lead to an order directing PJM to establish rules of the road — and relatively fast. PJM serves rapidly expanding data center corridors, including the nation’s largest in northern Virginia.
“The Commission’s inquiry is initially focused on PJM, the nation’s largest grid operator, because of the number of proceedings arising in PJM from co-location of generators with large load customers such as data centers,” the commission said in explaining an order that fell short of national guidance from the federal regulator.
