Trump and Mid-Atlantic governors want tech companies to pay for new power plants
An Amazon Web Services data center in Ashburn, Virginia, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. | Photo: Getty ImagesThe Trump administration and a bipartisan group of governors are pressuring the PJM Interconnection, the biggest electricity market in the US, to hold a power auction meant to spur a massive buildout of new power plants.
Together, they're "urging" PJM to hold an "emergency" auction for companies to procure electricity over 15-year contracts. The unusually long length of the contracts would ostensibly make it easier to build out new infrastructure by guaranteeing revenue and discouraging speculative requests to connect to the grid by data center developers.
The move comes as power grids scramble to meet increasing electricity demand from A ...