Legislators said March 28 they are concerned that a congested interconnection queue and limited transmission capacity will constrain the state’s ability to add generation fast enough to meet rising demand, including from large data centers. PJM, the Board of Public Utilities and energy-sector witnesses described a multi‑faceted set of constraints and near‑term options.

PJM’s Asim Haq and other witnesses said long delays in interconnection studies and the need for transmission upgrades have slowed construction of new capacity even when projects are proposed. PJM said it has advanced tens of gigawatts through revised queue rules and opened a special “reliability resource” application window to priorize shovel‑ready, high‑reliability resources; PJM reported it received 94 applications (about 27 GW) in that window.

BPU President Christine Gould Sidovi described rulemaking already underway: proposed grid‑modernization rules, a first set of interconnection‑process changes focused on transparency and capacity‑hosting maps, and a second round covering infrastructure‑upgrade allocation. She said currently the costs to upgrade local distribution or transmission for a developer fall either on the project or ultimately on utility customers, and that the board is exploring ways to coordinate planning and cost allocation with counties and municipalities.

Witnesses recommended near‑term emphasis on projects that can be deployed quickly — notably storage and solar projects that already cleared key interconnection steps — and on demand‑side options. Several lawmakers urged requiring large commercial users (data centers) to provide financial commitments and contractual guarantees before being counted in official load projections, and suggested conditioning data‑center approvals on bringing on dedicated generation or storage to avoid shifting costs to residential ratepayers.

Lawmakers also raised offshore wind uncertainty and whether state and federal policy assumptions about future offshore generation remain realistic. Witnesses said offshore wind has a favorable reliability profile but many projects have not reached construction; multiparty coordination and transmission planning remain essential to integrate large, offshore and onshore resources.

What’s next: PJM will continue queue reforms and accept reliability‑resource applications; New Jersey’s BPU will pursue grid modernization rules and interconnection reforms. Several legislators said they will pursue statutory gating criteria and transparency requirements for large new loads and revisit transmission approval oversight.