(The Center Square) – With AI-powered data centers rapidly driving up demand for electricity, predicting future needs is essential for planning the region and ensuring a reliable and affordable power supply.
Accurate forecasts matter because underestimating can strain reliability, while overestimating can lead to unnecessary spending and higher consumer bills.
A new report by PJM, the regional grid operator serving 67 million customers in 13 states and the District of Columbia, confirms the trend of significant electricity demand growth over the next 20 years. However, expected load growth in the near term decreased slightly compared to last year’s report.
The 2026 Long-Term Forecast is lower than 2025 in the near term through 2032, due to updated forecasting processes, including electric vehicle and economic forecasts, and improved vetting of requested adjustments for data centers and other large power generators.
For example, PJM’s 2026 Load Forecast Report says the updated forecast for summer predicts a drop in peak electricity use by 0.7% attributed to large loads, 0.5% for economic activity, and 0.1% for electric vehicles, compared to the previous year.
More stringent vetting of large load projects has lowered the near-term forecast by counting only projects with firm commitments and screening out potential “ghost projects” – cases where developers submit requests to multiple utilities while shopping for a site, which can inflate projected demand.
Still, major demand growth is expected over the next few decades.
Summer peak demand
Even with a slight near-term trim, PJM still expects summer peak demand to climb as large new loads come online.
The forecast shows summer peak reaching about 222,000 MW by 2036 – an increase of nearly 66,000 MW over 10 years – and surpassing 253,000 MW by 2046, a 20-year increase of nearly 97,000 MW.
Average summer peak growth is projected at 3.6% per year over the next decade and 2.4% per year over 20 years, a major shift from the 2021 forecast, which projected just 0.3% annual growth over 10 years. PJM also notes that 10-year annualized growth rates vary widely by zone, ranging from 0.2% to 6.4%, with a median of 1.6%.
For context, PJM’s record summer peak was 166,929 MW in 2006, and they indicate a potential increase of roughly 85,000 MW over the next 15 years, topping 241,000 MW by the early 2040s.
Winter peak demand
Winter peaks will remain slightly lower than summer, but are also expected to rise quickly, narrowing the gap.
Winter peak load is projected at 142,536 MW in 2027, rising to 199,622 MW by 2035, and approaching 224,000 MW by 2041.
Over the next 10 years, PJM predicts growth averaging 4.0% annually, and 2.7% annually over 20 years. As with summer, the growth is uneven across the footprint: 10-year annualized winter peak growth rates by zone ranging from 0.0% to 6.5%, with a median of 2.1%.
For additional perspective, a record winter peak was set on Jan. 22, 2025, serving an average hourly load of around 143,336 MW, and PJM reports current generating capacity of about 182,000 MW.
“We appreciate the work that the load-serving entities, including our member utilities, have done to help us better understand and predict how data center demand will show up on the system and when,” said PJM’s Vice President of Planning Jason Connell.
“This will help us with important decisions to be made on how best to integrate these large energy users, because the growth rate remains higher than anything we have seen in recent decades.”
As demand increases, concerns over reliability and affordability are dominating the energy discussion, as long-standing generation is retiring faster than replacements can come online. Adding new generation sources to meet that demand is being addressed by PJM’s Critical Issue Fast Path, or CIFP – a process to develop rules on how to connect new large loads without jeopardizing grid reliability.
The revised forecast reshapes the assumptions used in capacity and transmission planning, but any effect on Pennsylvanians’ bills will depend on future capacity auction outcomes and how utilities pass wholesale and transmission costs through to retail rates.
