Washington, D.C. – America’s Power submitted comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on September 3 opposing PJM Interconnection’s Interim Resource Adequacy Service (IRAS) proposal that was filed with FERC in mid-August. FERC must approve or disapprove the proposal. A copy of the America’s Power comments is available here.
America’s Power president and CEO Michelle Bloodworth released the following statement:
“America’s Power and many other stakeholders are urging FERC to reject PJM’s IRAS proposal. We recognize that this proposal is an attempt to address one of the biggest challenges − new data centers − facing PJM. However, the proposal is a bad idea that would create more problems than it solves. In particular, the proposal could cause the retirement of more coal power plants and make the PJM grid less reliable, which is exactly the opposite outcome that PJM is trying to achieve. Already, more than 10,000 megawatts of coal-fueled generation in PJM have announced plans to retire over the next five years. If these coal retirements are reversed, they could power 100 large data centers without the expense of building new power plants.
“PJM developed the proposal because new data centers, which consume huge amounts of electricity, want to connect to the grid before more power plants can be built to provide electricity for those data centers. In an attempt to solve this problem, PJM would allow new data centers to obtain electricity from existing power plants provided the data centers accept the risk of losing power during grid emergencies. Many data centers cannot afford to take this risk, so they are essentially forced to rely on new power plants in hopes they can be built fast enough.
“A kilowatt-hour generated by an existing power plant is the same as a kilowatt-hour from a new plant. It doesn’t make any sense to bias new data centers against existing power plants that are capable of providing much of the electricity they need without having to wait for expensive new power plants to be built.”