PJM’s New IRAS Filing: How Grid Operators Plan to Regulate Large Data Center Loads
Mid-Atlantic grid operator PJM just submitted a plan to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: Interim Resource Adequacy Service, or IRAS.
IRAS addresses new Large Load customers - data centers - and focuses on those data centers that do not provide their own power supply. When the grid is highly stressed PJM would institute an emergency notification procedure, signaling utilities to reduce or transfer large load electricity demand from these new Large Load customers before calling on demand response resources to shed load or go further into rotating black-outs
Large Loads that don’t bring new capacity or haven’t covered their demand with capacity purchased through the Reliability Backstop Procurement (another special process, starting this fall) would be subject to IRAS.
All large loads would be tracked through a PJM-maintained Large Load Registry , that would furnish relevant information to states, utilities and relevant regulatory agencies so that they can apply the IRAS service to Large Load customers if desired.
State-level entities will oversee and manage established and regulated retail load reduction plans and retail cost allocation, while PJM retains the tools needed for grid reliability.
If utilities and other load serving entities (such as retail suppliers) don't acquire capacity equal to or above combined peak demand of new Large Loads, PJM would direct these zones to reduce demand in proportion to their share not covered by new generation, before any demand response resources are called.
Also critical: beginning with the 2029/2030 capacity auction – scheduled for this December, new Large Loads without requisite supply won't be included as demand when future power needs are procured.
The December results will tell us a lot about how costs of capacity are affected by forecasted data load, and may validate the Independent Market Monitor estimate that the costs of the last four capacity auctions increased dramatically owing to data loads. By $29.4 billion, or 46% of total capacity payments. The December auction will give us yet another clear idea of the costs paid by PJM ratepayers because of data center loads - another reason to strongly dislike the huge new neighbor planning to move in down the block.