New Jersey’s largest electrical and gas utility, Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated (PSEG), has seen large-load interconnection requests rise to 9.4GW, driven almost entirely by the data center sector.

“There are a few other customers in that bucket, but I would say the bulk of that, if not over 90 percent of that, is all data center related,” said Ralph LaRosa, chair, president, and CEO, PSEG, during the company’s Q2 earnings call.

In total, the utility said that large load requests had grown 47 percent since Q1. Despite the pipeline growth, LaRosa said that he expects only between ten to 20 percent of those requests to come online.

In order to support the increased demand, PSEG announced its intention to expand its nuclear operations. The expansion will include a refueling of its 1.268GW Hope Creek nuclear plant in Salem County to extend fuel cycles from eighteen to twenty-four months. In addition, the utility announced its intention to uprate the adjacent 2.327GW Salem nuclear plant in Salem County by 200MW during 2027 to 2029.

PSEG supplies energy to around 2.4 million customers in New Jersey.

In addition to the growth of its data center pipeline, the utility reaffirmed $21–24 billion in capital spending through 2029 to support grid modernization and clean energy programs.

According to Data Center Map, New Jersey has 77 operational data centers. In March, AI data center developer Nebius announced plans to construct a 300MW data center in the state, with the first phase expected in summer 2025.

In June, a new bill to create a rate structure for new data centers built in the state was proposed. If passed, the bill would require electric public utilities in the state to develop and apply special rules for certain data centers to protect non-data center customers from increased costs.