Clean Power
PJM is one of most coal-dependent grids in the country. It’s time for PJM to move past outdated fossil fuels and embrace clean, affordable sources of power.
Fossil fuels are costly and inefficient, intensify the climate crisis, subject to price volatility, and harm public health—but PJM policies have hampered the transition to renewable energy sources and kept polluting power plants running past their useful lives.
Renewables are the cheapest, quickest way to meet growing energy needs, but at PJM, fossil fuel interests stand in the way of the energy transition. We work within PJM and across the region to promote policies that expand and accelerate the adoption of cleaner, cheaper resources like wind, solar, and batteries.
Our Priorities:
Zombie fossil plants
A growing number of uneconomic coal and gas plants are reaching retirement across the PJM region—but despite costing the public and delaying the energy transition, PJM negotiates “Reliability Must Run” (RMR) agreements to keep polluting, expensive generators online well past their planned deactivation dates. In 2024, we successfully introduced a proposal in PJM’s Markets & Reliability Committee to begin a discussion on how to design cost-effective alternatives to running expensive, polluting power plants past their planned closures.
Unfortunately, it’s not only PJM keeping expensive fossil plants alive—the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is newly enamored with 202(c) Orders. While 202(c) Orders were designed to serve a legitimate purpose—keeping a plant in operation for real emergencies, like a hurricane—the DOE has been abusing them to prop up aging fossil plants in a series of 90-day orders. In 2025, we joined consumer and environmental advocates to challenge DOE 202(c) orders to keep decades-old gas, oil and coal plants open in Pennsylvania and Michigan. According to advocates, DOE’s emergency orders cost consumers $259 million. In September 2026, a federal appeals court rejected the government’s abuse of emergency powers to keep the old Michigan coal plant open, a critical ruling in favor of consumers and the environment.
Interconnection queue reform
Developers have proposed enough wind, solar and battery storage projects— approximately 290 gigawatts—to provide abundant and low-cost energy for the region and bring down prices in PJM's capacity market.
Unfortunately, these projects have waited so long for final approval in PJM’s “interconnection queue” that most are in danger of never getting built. In 2023, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) laid out new standards–Order 2023–for interconnection processing, which PJM fought for years. FERC took a step in the right direction when it ordered PJM to incorporate battery storage and Grid Enhancing Technologies (GETs), also known as Advanced Transmission Technologies (ATTs), in commonsense ways in its interconnection planning. Although PJM finally moved to an improved interconnection queue process in 2026, the review process is not yet up to speed. As PJM struggles to meet unprecedented demand, we continue to advocate for reforms that prioritize fast, efficient, and clean energy solutions.
The gas fast-track
The nation’s largest power grid operator says it’s “fuel neutral” when considering energy resources, but PJM policies tend to favor dirty gas at the expense of wind and solar projects. Instead of fully and completely complying with FERC Order 2023, a federal rule to improve and speed the process of connecting to the grid, PJM unveiled a special, “one-time” fast-track interconnection process, called the Reliability Resource Initiative, that bypasses the existing interconnection queue. PJM’s emergency fast track, approved by FERC in 2025, let new resources–disproportionately dirty gas plants—cut in line and be considered along with projects that have already been waiting for years to be connected to the grid. Spoiler alert: resources selected through the RRI had a similar dropout rate to the regular interconnection process, so they got to cut in line but still didn’t build.
Surplus interconnection service
Surplus interconnection allows multiple resources to use the same interconnection point and fill in when another resource isn’t performing. For example, a gas plant could share a connection with a battery, which means the gas plant could run less while the battery provides capacity.
One study found that PJM could add 153 GW of clean energy through surplus—and because surplus interconnection reviews can be completed more quickly than standard interconnection studies, these resources could help to alleviate high prices.
Although PJM reformed its surplus interconnection rules in 2025, outstanding issues remain. We push for PJM to prioritize surplus interconnection reviews and for states to pass legislation to unlock this quickly deployed, yet underutilized resource.
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