PJM Interconnection said on April 29 that 811 new generation projects representing 220 GW of nameplate capacity applied to Cycle 1 of its reformed interconnection process. The application window closed April 27. A 91-day review runs through July 27, model posting is scheduled for June 26, and Phase I studies begin July 28. Projects are expected to clear in one to two years under the new cadence.
The fuel mix is the read worth holding onto.
By capacity, natural gas leads at 105.8 GW across 157 projects. Storage is next at 66.5 GW spread across 349 projects, the largest single project count in the cycle. Nuclear comes in at 17.9 GW, followed by solar at 14.8 GW, solar-storage hybrids at 8.9 GW, wind at 4.7 GW, hydro at 0.15 GW, and other resources at 0.5 GW.
Three things stand out.
First, the nuclear number. A 17.9 GW nuclear queue entry in a single RTO cycle is not noise. PJM’s prior queue volumes had nuclear in the low single-digit gigawatts or absent entirely. The Cycle 1 figure reflects the procurement rush from hyperscalers signing power-purchase agreements with restart and small-reactor developers (Constellation at Three Mile Island, Vistra, X-energy, Kairos, TerraPower, Oklo). Some portion of that 17.9 GW maps to those announced megadeals; the rest is utility-led or merchant exploration. The interconnection studies will be the first place those numbers face cost discipline.
Second, gas-plus-storage is the load-following pair. Natural gas leading by capacity reflects the calculus that data-center loads are firm and large, and storage leading by project count reflects the calculus that storage is the cheapest way to firm renewables and arbitrage capacity-market pricing. Both lines of evidence are consistent with the thesis that incremental US load growth is being met by a dispatchable plus battery stack rather than wind-and-solar alone.
Third, solar’s 14.8 GW is the number that absorbs the most asterisks. PJM’s reformed framework requires earlier proof of site control, permitting progress, and financial readiness. Several solar developers walked from the legacy Transition Cycle 1 over cost-allocation deltas at retool. Cycle 1’s solar number reflects survivors of that screen, not the open-ended speculative pipeline that defined PJM intake before reform.
Why this matters for the thesis.
The interconnection queue is the binding constraint on US generation buildout. Order 2023’s cluster studies and PJM’s domestic reform were designed to clear that constraint without restoring the open-door queue gaming of the prior era. Cycle 1 is the first clean read on what developers actually want to build under the new rules: dispatchable capacity for data-center load, storage for firming and capacity-market revenue, nuclear for hyperscale offtake, with solar surviving the readiness screen at lower volumes than it would have under the legacy regime.
The 220 GW figure will not all clear. Drop-outs at Phase I, cost reallocations at retool, and offtake-financing failures will all take their cuts. But the mix that survives Cycle 1 is the cleanest forward indicator of mid-decade PJM capacity additions, and the nuclear and storage entries are the lines most worth tracking.
Watch the August Phase I study release for first signal on which projects survive the readiness screen, and watch follow-on cycles for whether nuclear continues to scale or whether 17.9 GW was a one-time procurement-rush spike.