Press & data · original analysis
The PJM capacity cost, utility by utility
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New results — July 14, 2026
The 2028/29 auction: pinned at the cap for the third straight year
PJM's 2028/2029 Base Residual Auction, announced July 14, 2026, cleared at $325/MW-day (UCAP), the FERC-approved price cap — the third consecutive auction to clear at its cap. The auction procured 138,318 MW but fell 6,831 MW short of the reliability requirement, the second consecutive shortfall. The nominal price is about 2.5% below the December 2025 auction's $333.44 cap (the all-time high), but the consumer translation is unchanged: capacity costs stay at maximum-allowed levels through at least May 2029 — roughly 11× the 2024/25 baseline of $28.92/MW-day.
What it means for bills (FACT vs PROJECTION): the clearing price is fact; the per-utility bill impact of THIS auction is not yet commission-confirmed — it reaches bills as each state's default rate resets for the 2028/29 delivery year (most states: around June 1, 2028). The per-utility figures in the table below are the confirmed impacts of the earlier 2025–26 auction results, which remain in effect. What the $325 result guarantees is that those elevated supply costs do not come back down in the 2028/29 resets.
Source: PJM — 2028/2029 BRA results (July 14, 2026) · PJM — 2027/2028 BRA results (December 17, 2025)
PJM's record capacity auctions are pulling roughly $1.98 billion a year out of households across the 6 utilities below. Most coverage cites PJM's own "1.5% to 5%" bill-impact range; nobody publishes the per-utility dollar figure. We computed it from each state commission's own orders and federal customer counts — and we update this page within 24 hours of each new auction result.
The auction sequence that caused it
| Delivery year | Auction held | Clearing price ($/MW-day) | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024/2025 | 2022 | $28.92 | the baseline before the spike |
| 2025/2026 | July 2024 | $269.92 | a record at the time — roughly a 9–10× jump |
| 2026/2027 | July 2025 | $329.17 | cleared at the FERC-approved price cap for that auction |
| 2027/2028 | December 2025 | $333.44 | cleared at the cap again — the highest price in PJM history |
| 2028/2029 | July 2026 | $325.00 | third consecutive auction at the cap; 6,831 MW short of the reliability requirement |
Source: PJM Interconnection — 2028/2029 Base Residual Auction results (July 14, 2026). The 2026/27 auction cleared at the FERC-approved price cap — it would have gone higher otherwise.
What it costs, per utility
Each utility's reported monthly residential supply increase × 12 × its residential customer count. An aggregate across the customer base (ESTIMATE, methodology below) — not an individual bill figure.
| Utility | State | Increase / mo | Residential customers | Aggregate / year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSE&G | New Jersey | $26.87 | 2.1M | $663M |
| ComEd | Illinois | $10.60 | 3.7M | $470M |
| Dominion Energy Virginia | Virginia | $10.92 | 2.4M | $312M |
| Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L) | New Jersey | $22.67 | 1.0M | $282M |
| Atlantic City Electric | New Jersey | $28.02 | 506K | $170M |
| Pepco (D.C.) | Washington, D.C. | $20.81 | 319K | $80M |
| Total across these utilities | $1.98B/yr | |||
Per-utility monthly increases come from each state commission's orders — every figure links to its source in the CSV and on each utility's rate-increase page.
Methodology & caveats
- Formula: (monthly residential supply increase, from the state commission's order) × 12 × (residential customer count, U.S. EIA Form 861).
- What it is: an aggregate estimate of the dollars moved onto each utility's residential customer base by the 2025–26 capacity-driven supply increases.
- What it is NOT: an individual bill impact (that's the $/mo column), a precise accounting (rates reset on different schedules), or utility profit — default supply is a pass-through. This lands on the supply (generation) part of your bill, which on a default/standard rate is a pass-through — your utility buys the power and bills it through with no markup. The utility's own profit lives in the separate delivery (distribution) charge, set in a rate case.
- Coverage: only utilities with a commission-stated monthly dollar impact are included, so the true regional total is higher than the sum shown.
- Sources: state utility-commission orders (linked per utility), U.S. EIA-861, and PJM auction results.
For journalists
Republish freely with credit. The table, chart, and CSV on this page are free to republish or adapt with credit to "RateWatchdog" and a link to this page. The underlying figures are public-domain government data; our compilation is CC BY 4.0.
Auction-day commitment: when PJM's next Base Residual Auction clears, we will publish the updated per-utility impact analysis on this page within 24 hours — including what the new clearing price means for each utility's next default-rate reset. Want it in your inbox the moment it's live? Email press@ratewatchdog.com.
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