Trump to Direct Key US Grid Operator to Hold Emergency Auction

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(Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump and US Northeast governors will direct the nation’s largest grid operator to hold an emergency power auction putting technology giants on the hook to pay for the construction of a fleet of new plants, an unprecedented move to meet surging electricity demand and quell concerns about data centers driving up costs. 

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The push, set to come Friday in the form of a “statement of principles” signed by Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council and the governors of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and other states, represents an extraordinary intervention into the nation’s power markets, underscoring mounting unease about the rising cost of electricity. 

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Under the initiative, the administration and governors whose states are supplied by PJM Interconnection LLC will urge the grid operator to hold a reliability power auction giving tech companies and hyperscalers the chance to bid on 15-year contracts for new electricity generation. If PJM goes along with the plan, it could be mammoth in scale, delivering contracts that would support the construction of some $15 billion worth of new power plants, said a White House official granted anonymity to detail the approach. 

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The push responds to growing worry about power demand far outpacing supply in the region managed by PJM, which serves more than 67 million people from the Mid-Atlantic to the Midwest. And it seeks to address building tension over how the nation can supply electricity to power-hungry data centers seen necessary to help win a global competition to dominate artificial intelligence without simultaneously hiking utility bills for American consumers.

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Trump has repeatedly described power plants being built alongside data centers, and on Monday, he doubled down on the idea, insisting in a social media post that the big technology companies that build data centers must “pay their own way.”  

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“I never want Americans to pay higher Electricity bills because of Data Centers,” Trump said.

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Cost-of-living concerns are already weighing heavily on Republicans’ bid to maintain control of the House and Senate in this November’s elections. While Trump has stressed the plummeting cost of oil and gasoline since he took office last January, electricity prices have climbed due to rising demand — and there’s a building backlash against data centers that are fueling the surge.

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