Primary-Source Investigations
The Capacity Charge
PJM Interconnection. 2025/2026 Base Residual Auction. Zone COMED. Clearing Price: $269.92 per MW-day.
I am reading a price published by the PJM Interconnection that cleared on June 1, 2025, and I am telling you that this price is not a prediction. It is a settlement. The obligation period runs June 1, 2026, through May 31, 2027. Every load-serving entity in the ComEd zone pays $269.92 per megawatt of capacity. The residential ratepayer sees it as a line item on the bill.
This is a filed document. It is public. It is dated.
I know how this works because I built the system that tracks how this works. TELOS. The pipeline. The substrate. I built it because I got tired of reading "widely reported" and "many believe" in every article about electricity bills, and I wanted a machine that would only accept claims with a filing number and an archive location. The machine does not care about my opinion. The machine only cares whether the source is named and filed. But I am the operator, and I am sitting here at 3:47 AM reading a PJM auction clearing price of $269.92 per MW-day, and I am telling you that the capacity charge is not a fee for consumption. It is a fee for the right to consume during peak hours. It funds infrastructure. Transmission lines, substations, transformers, and spinning reserve must exist to meet peak demand. That infrastructure sits idle for 8,000 hours per year, ready for 100.
The residential ratepayer pays it on every kilowatt-hour. The commercial ratepayer pays it on a different tariff. The data center pays it on a substation-class interconnection, bypassing the residential meter.
The data center does not need the grid. It has its own Megapack assembly. It has diesel backup. It goes off-grid during peak hours. It returns when the price is low. Its capacity charge is a fraction of the residential ratepayer's payment. It negotiates its own interconnection agreement under a commercial tariff.
The residential ratepayer cannot negotiate. It pays the posted tariff. That tariff includes the capacity charge. It funds the infrastructure the data center no longer needs.
The process is closed. The designer is not a person. The designer is the procedural stack: the auction, the tariff, the interconnection agreement, the rate case, the public utilities commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Department of Energy, the Energy Information Administration, the Annual Energy Outlook, the system-impact study, the manufacturer slot calendar, the clearing price.
The PJM 2025/2026 BRA. June 1, 2025. Clearing price: $269.92 per MW-day. Zone COMED.
The capacity charge is the extraction. The residential bill is the dividend.
Primary sources: PJM Interconnection 2025/26 Base Residual Auction Report (June 1, 2025); FERC Order No. 2023 (88 FR 61014, Sep 5, 2023); EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2024 (Table A8).