Pritzker Governors Want Grid Operator to Protect Consumers

As data centers fuel a surge in electricity demand, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is joining a bipartisan group of state leaders pressing a key grid operator to make sure the cost of that growth doesn’t fall on everyday consumers.

Pritzker and governors from six other states urged PJM Interconnection — which oversees power transmission across 13 states, including northern Illinois — to rethink how it pays for new generating capacity needed to support energy hungry users like data centers, the Daily Herald reported. In a joint letter sent Thursday, the group argued that, “preferably,” those costs should be borne directly by the large load customers driving demand.

The push comes as PJM confronts a widening imbalance between electricity demand and available supply. The grid operator warned earlier this year that new consumption — led in part by hyperscale data centers — is outpacing infrastructure development, a gap expected to grow over the next decade.

That mismatch has major implications for real estate. Data centers have proliferated across the Chicago suburbs, from Aurora to Joliet, as developers chase land, tax incentives and proximity to fiber networks. But the power required to run those facilities — and the cost of expanding generation and transmission — is emerging as a critical constraint, according to the outlet.

Governors are increasingly wary that those costs could be spread across ratepayers. In their letter, they also flagged the risk of “stranded” expenses, such as projects built to serve data centers that never materialize or fall short of projected demand.

Pritzker framed the issue as a consumer protection priority.

“As electricity demand and costs rise across Illinois and the region, our top priority is to put our people first,” he said in a statement.

PJM, however, pushed back on the idea that it can directly assign costs to specific users, noting that such authority lies with state regulators, according to the publication. The agency said that framework was acknowledged in prior agreements with states and federal officials.

The debate lands as major tech companies — including Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft — have pledged to fund or procure new power generation tied to their data center expansion.

— Eric Weilbacher