PJM Capacity Auction Procures 138,318 MW of Generation Resources (2028/2029 Base Residual Auction)
2028/29 capacity cleared at the $325/MW-day cap (third collared auction, second at the cap; -2.5% vs $333.44 for 2027/28), 6,831 MW short of the reliability requirement. Carries the superseded series $329.17 (2026/27, Talen 8-K) -> $333.44 (2027/28, ~5,100 MW of forecast growth from data centres) -> $325. The rung's first power price.
Read depth: the 4-page PJM news release in full. The detailed auction report PDF was not read. For the series, PJM's 2027/28 release and Talen's 2026/27 8-K exhibit were also read in full.
What a capacity auction is, in one paragraph
PJM runs the grid for 67 million people across 13 states and Washington DC. Once a year it pays power plants to promise they will be available at peak, years ahead. The price is quoted in dollars per megawatt per day ("$/MW-day"). The cost flows into customers' bills, except for load covered by a utility's own plants or by private contracts, which PJM says is not exposed to the auction price. It is the clearest public price for "being able to get power when the grid is tight".
The numbers, as published
| Item | 2028/2029 auction (this source) |
|---|---|
| Date cleared | 2026-07-14 |
| Price | $325/MW-day, the agreed cap, across the whole PJM footprint |
| Change | down 2.5% from the 2027/28 cap of $333.44 |
| Capacity bought | 138,318 MW (plus 10,864 MW self-supplied by utilities outside the auction, total 149,182 MW) |
| Short of the reliability requirement by | 6,831 MW |
| Reserve margin held | 14.7% |
| Auction value (cleared supply × price) | $16.4bn |
| New generation and upgrades cleared | 525 MW |
| Cleared mix | 46% gas, 20% nuclear, 18% coal, 5% demand response, 4% hydro, 2% wind, 2% oil, 1% solar |
| Next auction | 2029/30, scheduled for December 2026 |
The series — three collared auctions, the last two at the cap
| Delivery year | Cleared | Price ($/MW-day) | Short of requirement | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026/27 | July 2025 | $329.17 | cleared 139 MW over | Talen 8-K (price); PJM 2027/28 release (margin) — superseded print |
| 2027/28 | 2025-12-17 | $333.44 (cap) | 6,623 MW | PJM release, 2025-12-17 — superseded print |
| 2028/29 | 2026-07-14 | $325.00 (cap) | 6,831 MW | this release — current print |
Whether the 2026/27 auction also cleared exactly at its cap is not stated in the texts read [unverified]; secondary coverage says so. The 2027/28 and 2028/29 releases both say "came in at the FERC-approved cap".
The 2026/27 and 2027/28 prices are kept as dated observations, not as the current price. Talen Energy's 8-K reported that it cleared 6,702 MW at $329.17/MW-day in the MAAC, PPL and PSEG zones for June 2026–May 2027, about $805M of capacity revenue for that one company. PJM's 2027/28 release is the source for the rest of that row and says the 2027/28 price was "+1.3%" on 2026/27.
The price is not a free market reading. PJM, the 13 state governors and the federal regulator agreed a cap and a floor for four auctions. The last two cleared at the cap, so the price shows only that the market wanted at least this much. The 2028/29 release calls it "the third consecutive auction with the price collar".
What PJM says about data centres
- 2027/28 release: forecast peak demand rose about 5,250 MW over the previous auction's forecast, and "nearly 5,100 MW of that increase is attributable to data center demand." A PJM executive: the auction "leaves no doubt that data centers' demand for electricity continues to far outstrip new supply".
- 2028/29 release: the forecast rose about 2,000 MW more, with "the continued trend of the addition of large data center loads". PJM is building "Connect and Manage" rules to let large new loads such as data centres connect but run flexibly when needed, and since 9 June 2026 has been helping large loads sign 10-year-plus contracts directly with new generators.
- The two most recent auctions were "the first in PJM history in which the entire RTO fell short of the reliability requirement."
Through-line: token price → task price
This is the rung's first price for power, rather than a count. A capacity price of about $325–333 per MW-day, applied to a data centre's peak draw, is a cost it pays whether or not it runs, before any energy is bought. As a rough scale, and our arithmetic rather than PJM's: $325/MW-day × 365 days is about $119,000 per MW-year, or about $119M a year for a 1 GW campus if its whole peak were charged at the auction price. How much actually reaches a data centre's bill depends on its utility tariff and any self-supply or bilateral contract, which PJM notes are not exposed to the auction price. So treat it as an order of magnitude, not a bill.
Limitations
- Capped price. The last two auctions cleared at the cap, so the price understates what an uncapped market would have paid. An uncapped figure of $554.72/MW-day for 2028/29 appears in secondary coverage [unverified: not in the PJM release read here].
- One region. PJM is the most data-centre-exposed US grid, but not the only one. ERCOT has no capacity market at all.
- Capacity, not energy. This is the price of being available at peak. The price of the electricity actually used is separate and not in this source.
- Press release, not the auction report. Zonal prices below the RTO-wide figure are not given in the text read.
- Talen's row is one company's slice of the 2026/27 auction; the $329.17 is the price it reports for its zones.
Source: PJM Interconnection, "PJM Capacity Auction Procures 138,318 MW of Generation Resources as Work Continues To Address Growing Electricity Demand", 2026-07-14. Series read alongside: PJM, "PJM Auction Procures 134,479 MW of Generation Resources", 2025-12-17 and Talen Energy, 8-K Exhibit 99.1, 2025-07-22.