US Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) PJM Interconnection has announced that 811 new generation projects with a combined capacity of 220GW have applied to connect to the grid through the first cycle of PJM’s reformed interconnection process.

The reformed process has replaced PJM’s previous first-come, first-served model with a first-ready, first-served approach. The new approach prioritizes projects that are more advanced and better positioned to move forward.

In order to qualify for interconnection, the projects must now demonstrate they are actually viable prior to entering the queue, which includes meaningful up-front financial commitments and proof of site control. According to PJM, the new process was required to reduce speculative projects, improve predictability, and increase the overall pace of interconnection.

“PJM and our stakeholders have created a process that gets as many projects approved as quickly and safely as possible,” said interim president and CEO David Mills. “These numbers represent significant interest from developers resulting from strong market signals, and our reformed process is designed to prioritize viable projects that can move to construction and operations with greater speed and certainty.”

The projects represent a diverse portfolio of generation assets and comprise 349 energy storage projects (66.5GW),157 natural gas projects (105.8GW), 142 solar projects (14.8GW), 65 wind projects (4.7GW), 45 solar-storage hybrid projects (8.9GW), 27 nuclear projects (17.9GW), 11 hydropower projects (0.15GW), and 15 projects designated under other. The “other” category includes biomass, coal, methane, and fusion energy.

“We are encouraged by the diversity of generation types that are seeking to join the PJM generation fleet,” said Mills. “That includes first-time innovative technologies such as small nuclear reactors and fusion, more storage projects than any other technology, a resurgence in natural gas, and continued strong participation by renewables and hybrids. This is good news because we need all the generation we can get.”

The reformed interconnection process used an AI-enabled tool, dubbed HyperQ, developed by Google's Moonshot company, Tapestry. The RTO signed a partnership agreement to deploy Tapestry’s agentic AI system last April. HyperQ is a grid interconnection platform that can accelerate the processing of applications for new grid connections.

The system works by analyzing interconnection applications using agentic AI and organizing them in a centralized web interface. According to Tapestry, the system can process an entire batch of applications at once, creating a detailed report for each application to inform grid planners about whether it might contain deficiencies or missing elements.

“The grid needs more capacity, fast. But to get there, we need to accelerate the process for connecting new energy sources to the grid. The time involved in reviewing applications is a high-stakes task that pulls skilled engineers away from critical analytical work to manually cross-check hundreds of inputs across thousands of pages,” said Cat Wong, head of technical operations at Tapestry. “That’s where we started with HyperQ, Tapestry’s new intelligent grid interconnection platform that accelerates the processing of applications from new energy sources looking to connect to the grid.”

The reformed process was driven by the growth of data center load seeking to connect to the PJM grid. The RTO has forecast that between 2024 and 2030, electricity demand across its footprint will increase by more than 30GW, much of which will come from the data center market.