CHICAGO — Yesterday, Governor JB Pritzker joined a bipartisan coalition of governors across the PJM Interconnection region — the grid operator for Northern Illinois — to call for the operator to ensure data center electricity use does not drive up energy costs. The coalition also called for continued efforts to bolster its consumer protections for working families.

“As electricity demand and costs rise across Illinois and the region, our top priority is to put our people first while ensuring a reliable and affordable energy supply,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “That’s why I’m joining governors on both sides of the aisle in urging PJM to keep consumers at the center of every decision it makes. That means requiring data centers to pay their fair share and taking every step possible to protect working families.”

The joint letter comes after senior Illinois state officials attended a multistate meeting with PJM leadership last month to emphasize the need for PJM to address both affordability and reliability for businesses and working families. The bipartisan group welcomed PJM’s willingness to work with member states and acknowledged the grid operator’s recent steps to stabilize prices and safeguard ratepayers, including extending the capacity market price collar — following pressure from the group of governors’ call to bring down costs. This move has already saved consumers approximately $18 billion, with $27 billion more in savings expected from the extension.

Governor Pritzker and the group of governors are now calling on PJM to build on this work by implementing new guardrails to ensure that data centers are paying their fair share. With that mission in mind, the letter outlines key expectations for PJM to include in their filing to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC):

• Data centers must cover the full costs they impose on the grid: PJM should directly assign backstop capacity costs to new data centers entering service after July 1, 2027, except where vertically integrated states already have established rate structures for large load customers.
• Strong consumer protection mechanisms are essential: PJM should ensure customers are shielded from stranded costs if data centers default or if PJM procures excess capacity. They also urged PJM to prevent inflated capacity market prices by serving new data center load through the backstop mechanism beginning with the 2028/2029 auction.
• A connect-and-manage program is needed to maintain reliability: New data centers that do not secure new generation or pay backstop costs should be subject to mandatory curtailment during system stress events.
• PJM must stay flexible to meet near-term reliability needs. Given the long lead times for new energy infrastructure, the governors encouraged PJM to consider all new, additive resources — both supply- and demand-side — as eligible for the 2027/2028 delivery year.

This action builds on Governor Pritzker’s ongoing efforts to tackle the affordability crisis and hold PJM accountable. The Governor has proposed a two-year pause of the state’s data center tax credit program and joined a bipartisan group of nine governors calling on PJM to adopt governance reforms. Earlier, Governor Pritzker partnered with governors from Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania to push PJM to fix flaws in its capacity auction that drove record-high electricity prices — nearly ten times higher than the previous year.

Read the full letter below:

PJM Governors' Collaborative Letter 04.09.26.pdf

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