Power

Grid supply · PJM region, including Virginia and Ohio

The PJM grid secured less capacity than its reliability requirement for 2028/29

Delivery year: 2028/29 · Auction results: 14 July 2026 · Second auction in a row below requirement

• 6,831 MWbelow PJM's reliability requirement (unforced capacity). Previous auction: 6,516 MW.
• 14.7%estimated total reserve margin, against a 20% target
• $325.00per MW-day: the 2028/29 wholesale auction clearing price, at the cap. A market result, not a facility bill.

PJM runs this auction to secure enough generation, and demand that can be reduced, for a future year. For 2028/29 it secured 149,182 MW of unforced capacity, a rating that discounts each resource for how reliably it can deliver. That was 6,831 MW short of the 156,013 MW requirement. PJM says the shortfall "does not necessarily mean that the PJM system will be unable to serve load reliably", but that it "would have to operate with slimmer reserves and greater level of risk."

Two reserve margins appear in the report. 14.7% is PJM's estimate for the whole region, counting capacity bought in the auction and capacity that some utilities commit from their own resources. 14.4% counts the auction alone. Both are below the 20% target, which PJM sets to hold the expected loss of load to one day in ten years.

This is the second auction in a row to clear more than one percentage point below that target. PJM's report says its current tariff provides for a separate Reliability Backstop Auction if three consecutive auctions do so. The report describes changes to those backstop rules as work in PJM's stakeholder process, not as approved rules.

Wholesale auction clearing price, $ per MW-day

Region-wide wholesale clearing prices for each delivery year, as listed in PJM's 2028/29 report. The 2027/28 and 2028/29 auctions both cleared at their price caps. These are market results, not facility bills: PJM notes that its auction totals do not equal the cost to customers, because load whose supply is hedged is not exposed to the clearing price.

Correction, 24 September 2026. We removed a per-MW-year figure calculated from the auction clearing price, which could be read as a facility cost, and rewrote the facility question to separate a customer's peak load contribution from its supplier's capacity obligation. We also described PJM's backstop rule changes as proposals.

OGrid operator source. PJM Interconnection, 2028/2029 Base Residual Auction Report (PDF), 14 July 2026, pages 3–5; and PJM Manual 18: PJM Capacity Market (PDF), Revision 62, effective 17 December 2025, sections 7.4–7.5.