The U.S. Department of Energy has directed PJM Interconnection and Constellation Energy to keep 760 MW of generation at the Eddystone Generating Station in Pennsylvania available to operate through Nov. 20. The Aug. 21 order, issued under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, is the sixth DOE directive extending Eddystone’s availability since the plant was originally scheduled to retire on May 31, 2025.
Eddystone Units 3 and 4, each rated at 380 MW and capable of running on natural gas or oil, must be economically dispatched by PJM when needed, though the order specifies the units will not count as capacity resources.
A Widening Supply-Demand Gap
DOE’s reliability analysis points to roughly 25 GW of projected load growth across PJM’s territory, including about 15 GW attributable to data centers, set against approximately 17 GW of announced fossil-fuel plant retirements. Under worst-case weather modeling, DOE estimated up to 1,052 hours of potential loss-of-load conditions and unserved load reaching about 21.3 GW.
PJM has separately forecast 32 GW of load growth by 2030, with 30 GW of that increase driven primarily by large loads such as data centers. The grid operator also set an all-time peak load record on July 2, hitting an estimated 168,158 MW according to preliminary data.
Regulators Flag an Unprecedented Shift
Pennsylvania consumer advocate Darryl Lawrence said PJM’s reliability posture has changed markedly after decades of comfortable reserve margins, noting the grid has not faced this scale of forecasted demand since the era of major steel mill construction. Energy analysts quoted in the report described the core issue as a timing mismatch: data center load is arriving faster than new generation and transmission can be built and approved.
Observers also noted that repeated use of emergency authority under Section 202(c), historically a short-term reliability tool, may be shifting toward becoming a more routine part of grid planning as the current administration’s national energy emergency declaration provides a broader justification for its use.
Unresolved Cost Questions
The DOE order requires PJM to use economic dispatch to minimize ratepayer costs, but it does not resolve who ultimately pays to keep a retiring plant online. Costs generally flow through wholesale markets and can affect electricity customers broadly. Pennsylvania’s existing large-load tariff uses a “but for” test to assign infrastructure costs to specific customers, but applying that standard to a shared resource like Eddystone is difficult since electricity cannot be traced to a specific generator or data center. PJM’s recent large-load connection reforms may shape how future data centers join the grid, but they do not address generation already slated for retirement.