US President Donald Trump is expected, alongside US governors in the Northeast, to direct the Regional Transmission Operator (RTO) PJM Interconnection to hold an emergency power auction that would see data center operators foot the bill for the construction of new power generation infrastructure.

First reported by Bloomberg, the announcement expected today (16 January) will be signed by Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council and the governors of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, and other states. (Update: Details on the council meeting have been released, read more here.)

Under the terms of the initiative, the Trump administration and governors within the PJM Interconnection market will push the RTO to launch a reliability power auction, giving tech companies and hyperscalers the chance to bid on 15-year contracts for new electricity generation.

According to reports, if the plan were to go ahead, it could deliver contracts worth more than $15 billion to facilitate the construction of new power plants.

Despite the announcement's magnitude, PJM representatives were not invited. “We don’t have a lot to say on this,” PJM spokesman Jeffrey Shields said in an email to Bloomberg. “We were not invited to the event they are apparently having tomorrow, and we will not be there.”

The reports surfaced days after President Trump urged large data center firms, starting with Microsoft, to “pay their own way” when it comes to the energy infrastructure needed for their increasingly large facilities.

"We are the 'HOTTEST' Country in the World, and Number One in AI. Data Centers are key to that boom, and keeping Americans FREE and SECURE but, the big Technology Companies who build them must 'pay their own way,'” said the President.

The move is in response to growing concerns that power demand emanating from the data center sector is far outpacing supply across the PJM market. PJM, which serves 13 states across the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, recently announced that its summer peak load will grow by 3.6 percent a year to about 222GW by 2036, driven predominantly by data center growth.

In July of last year, following the RTO’s latest annual capacity auction, where wholesale electric capacity grew 22 percent compared to the year before, reports surfaced that ratepayers across the network could begin facing spiralling bills fueled by the growth of the data center sector.