PJM wholesale power prices jump 75% as datacenter demand spikes

In the PJM Interconnection, the United States' largest wholesale electricity market covering 13 states and the District of Columbia, wholesale power costs have surged by 75.5% year‑over‑year, rising from $77.78 per MWh in early 2025 to $136.53 per MWh in the same period of 2026. The market monitor Monitoring Analytics identified rapid datacenter load growth—particularly in Northern Virginia, the world’s densest datacenter cluster—as the primary driver of tighter supply‑demand balances, higher capacity market prices, and strained grid capacity.

The report warned that the price impacts on all PJM customers are large and not reversible, forecasting even larger spikes unless the datacenter load issue is addressed. Planned upgrades to PJM’s dispatch software have been delayed, and a proposed one‑time backstop auction to secure new generation capacity could shift substantial risk onto residential, commercial and industrial customers. Monitoring Analytics recommended that datacenters be required to bring their own power (BYOP), with fast‑track interconnection options only when sufficient capacity exists, to protect other grid users from bearing the cost of the datacenter boom.