Exelon, the Chicago-based utility company serving about 10.7 million customers across PJM’s Mid-Atlantic and Midwest footprint, asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Nov. 3 to order PJM Interconnection to change how it buys power capacity. The request would swap today’s schedule, which runs auctions three years ahead of need, for a “prompt” auction held about two months before each delivery year. Exelon wants an order by Jan. 31, 2027. Its case is that the capacity market no longer works properly.
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The filing, docket EL27-11-000, lands while the grid operator is already debating how to redesign the market after an auction that fell short of its reserve target.
The prompt schedule starting with the 2030/31 delivery year
The complaint, filed under sections 206, 306 and 309 of the Federal Power Act, asks FERC to find that PJM’s three-year forward period is “no longer just and reasonable” and to adopt the prompt schedule as the replacement rate. Each base residual auction would be held about two months ahead of its delivery year, beginning with 2030/2031, which is now scheduled for May 2027. Exelon asks for a refund effective date of Jan. 1, 2027 and fast-track handling. The December 2026 auction for 2029/2030, and any reliability backstop procurement, would be untouched, and the former would run as planned, after which the 2030/31 auction would move to early 2030. Exelon argues the shorter gap would allow more accurate load forecasts, resource availability data and accreditation levels, and better signals for plants deciding whether to enter or exit. The filing lists Jordan Kwok, Exelon’s director of federal regulatory affairs, and assistant general counsel Alejandro Bautista as contacts.
Exelon’s argument rests on forecasting, and on history: FERC accepted the three-year period in 2006, the complaint says, because forecast risk then looked reasonable against the risk of too little construction. Load forecast errors have grown, the complaint says, largely because of data center load, and new capacity often cannot be built within three years. Hedging by load-serving entities, which PJM and regulators expected the long lead time to encourage, has not materialized under state and federal constraints. Owners of older units cannot reliably forecast conditions three to four years out, and accreditation values rest on assumptions made about 3.5 years before delivery. Two affidavits, from Dr. Emma Nicholson and Deborah Sears, support the filing, and the complaint cites earlier FERC approval of prompt schedules for ISO-NE, NYISO and MISO.
PJM’s response and the Nov. 13 workshop
Utility Dive reported that PJM spokesman Jeffrey Shields said the operator is reviewing the complaint and will respond at “the appropriate time.” Separately, PJM’s market-reform initiative has drawn more than 30 stakeholder responses, to be discussed at a workshop on Nov. 13 running 9 a.m. to noon Eastern. Contributors to the call for papers range from Constellation and Vistra to NRDC, the Sierra Club and the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel, along with consultants such as Brattle. The board directive that started the review dates to Jan. 16, 2026, and the earlier workshops were held on Oct. 1 and 2.
In May, PJM’s market-design paper laid out three paths: stabilize the market through longer-term forward commitments, accept differential reliability across customers or regions, or move more revenue recovery into energy and ancillary-service markets. PJM President and CEO David Mills wrote in a letter to stakeholders that “The current situation is not tenable.” The paper also said the delayed and compressed schedule of base residual auctions since 2019 shaped how the price shock arrived, though it did not create the shortage. Mills added that reliability remains the operator’s absolute north star.
The shortfall behind the complaint
The most recent auction result explains the urgency. PJM’s February 2026 shortfall report found the 2027/2028 auction procured 6,517 megawatts below the reliability requirement, leaving a 14.4% installed reserve margin against a 20% target. It named data center growth, about 54 gigawatts of retirements from 2011 to 2023, roughly 24 gigawatts of terminated approved projects, and turbine and transformer lead times of three to four years among the causes. The cleared amount was 134,478.1 megawatts, with 11,299 megawatts more committed by fixed-resource suppliers, and the gap exceeded the one-percentage-point threshold that triggers an investigation under the PJM tariff. A price cap of $333.44 per megawatt-day also kept 809.6 megawatts from clearing.
A companion filing arrived a day later: Invenergy Transmission asked FERC on Nov. 4 to make MISO open its capacity market to merchant high-voltage direct-current lines. The test case is the Grain Belt Express, a 5-gigawatt, 600-kilovolt line of about 800 miles from Kansas to Indiana costing roughly $11 billion, which Invenergy says could provide more than 1,800 megawatts of accredited capacity under MISO’s direct-loss-of-load method.
The sources read here report no FERC order yet. The deadline Exelon chose, Jan. 31, 2027, falls the day before PJM is due to release planning parameters for the 2030/31 auction, so FERC’s answer, or its silence, will shape what the grid operator publishes next.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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