Pricing
PJM Base Residual Auction Clearing Price
Annual PJM RTO Base Residual Auction resource-clearing prices for capacity commitments beginning in each delivery year.
PJM Base Residual Auction Clearing Price
The latest PJM RTO clearing price is $325 per MW-day for the delivery year beginning 2028-06-01.
Methodology
Each point is the PJM RTO Resource Clearing Price for the Base Residual Auction (BRA) securing capacity for the delivery year shown. The timestamp is June 1 of that delivery year, the start of PJM's June 1–May 31 delivery period; future timestamps are intentional because the auction clears capacity in advance.
The 2012/13–2019/20 values are transcribed from the historical BRA clearing-price table in PJM's official 2019/20 BRA report. The 2020/21–2028/29 values are read from the RTO row in the official result workbooks linked from PJM's Reliability Pricing Model auction page. The updater replaces a value when a current official workbook is available.
The chart uses the RTO-wide price rather than a constrained locational deliverability area. PJM zones can clear at different prices—especially in years with transmission constraints—so the RTO line is a broad system benchmark and does not represent the price paid by every load-serving entity or project.
BRA prices are capacity payments expressed in dollars per unforced-capacity megawatt-day. They reflect the auction's reliability requirements, offers, locational constraints, market rules, and regulatory price caps. They should not be added directly to monthly energy prices or interpreted as a forecast of data-center operating costs.
Frequently asked questions
What does the PJM BRA price measure?
It is the PJM RTO Resource Clearing Price from the Base Residual Auction, in U.S. dollars per MW-day of unforced capacity. The auction procures commitments for a future June-to-May delivery year.
Why does this matter for the AI industry?
Large data centers increase the importance of dependable regional power and can contribute to tighter capacity markets. A rising BRA price is a market signal that securing reliability capacity in PJM has become more expensive, relevant context for AI infrastructure siting and expansion.
Is this the electricity price paid by a data center?
No. Capacity payments are only one component of the power system. A data center's bill can also include energy, transmission, distribution, demand charges, taxes, contracts, and hedges, and its local zone may clear above or below the RTO-wide price.
Why are some delivery-year timestamps in the future?
PJM auctions capacity before the delivery period begins. The timestamp identifies the June 1 start of the delivery year for the capacity commitment, so an auction already completed can legitimately produce a point dated after the current calendar date.
Why use the RTO line instead of Virginia's Dominion zone?
The RTO line provides a stable system-wide benchmark across the full history. PJM also publishes locational prices, and constrained zones such as Dominion or BGE can differ materially; the RTO series should not be read as a local Virginia price.
What caused the sharp 2025/26 increase?
PJM's 2025/26 BRA cleared at $269.92/MW-day for the RTO, up from $28.92 in 2024/25. PJM's report attributes the changed clearing environment to factors including forecast load, reliability requirements, resource accreditation, supply offers, and auction design; the chart alone does not isolate the contribution of data centers.