The PJM Interconnection’s market monitor on Wednesday urged federal regulators to reject an application from GenOn to sell a 216-MW power plant in Maryland to TeraWulf over concerns the data center developer would remove the resource from PJM’s market.
Taking the four Morgantown generating units out of the PJM market would run counter to “principles” issued by the National Energy Dominance Council and the PJM governors that call for new data centers to provide new generation, Monitoring Analytics, the market monitor, said ina filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The proposed deal between TeraWulf and GenOn would also shift risks and costs to PJM customers and would be inconsistent with the public interest, according to Monitoring Analytics.
The Trump administration and others have been pressing for data center companies to pay for their own power supply and energy infrastructure needs.President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued a “ratepayer pledge” — signed by Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI — that states that the companies will acquire new generation to meet their data center needs.
“Where possible, these companies will also add more capacity that serves the broader public by increasing supply,” the pledge states.
In its filing at FERC, Monitoring Analytics said the Morgantown power plant is in a constrained zone in PJM that needs existing generation to be retained and new generation to be built.
FERC should reject the proposed deal and require GenOn to refile its application to clarify that the Morgantown units would continue supplying the PJM market, according to the market monitor.
“TeraWulf should be required to commit to not removing the Morgantown Units from the PJM market to serve data center load,” Monitoring Analytics said.
TeraWulf, however, plans to be a net generator for Maryland, according to company officials.
TeraWulf intends to build its project in two phases, each with about 500 MW of gas-fired generation, 250 MW of battery storage and 500 MW of data center load, Paul Prager, TeraWulf chairman and CEO, said during a Feb. 26 earnings call.
Source: ZeroHedge News
