NJ orders utilities to explain solar delays amid data center boom

• The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities gave utilities until March 5 to explain interconnection delays.
• CoreWeave and NVIDIA plan major data center expansion, including a $1.8B Kenilworth project.
• Regulators said faster solar and storage connections could help lower electric bills.

New Jersey’s four major utilities have until March 5 to explain to regulators why rooftop solar, community solar and battery storage projects are taking longer than expected to connect to the power grid, even as electricity demand rises.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities issued a Request for Information on Feb. 4 asking Atlantic City Electric, Jersey Central Power & Light, Public Service Electric and Gas and Rockland Electric Company to provide detailed information on how they are processing interconnection requests, because delays could slow projects meant to reduce monthly electricity bills for residents and businesses while massive AI data centers snap up new power.

The board also asked what steps utilities could take to modernize the grid and accelerate connections for distributed energy resources.

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The request comes after Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed Executive Order 2 when she took office in January 2026, declaring a state of emergency for the electric grid. Sherrill cited rising electricity demand and high electric rates and directed the BPU to increase in-state generation and speed the interconnection of distributed energy projects.

Utilities must also identify specific circuits that receive large numbers of interconnection applications and circuits with poor reliability that should be prioritized for upgrades.

“Addressing interconnection challenges is critical to lowering costs and getting clean energy online faster,” Christine Guhl-Sadovy, president of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, said in a statement announcing the request. A BPU release from early February said the request is meant to help implement the executive order and identify where utilities can improve efficiency and expand capacity for new projects.

The request seeks information on compliance with interconnection regulations, circuits with limited capacity that are blocking new projects, updating hosting capacity maps and how utilities plan to use smart inverter technologies and flexible interconnection protocols to increase grid capacity.

PSE&G filings and public data show the scale of the interconnection workload. As of Dec. 31, 2025, PSE&G reported processing 13,915 net meter applications for solar and storage projects in 2025 and approving nearly all of them. A company statement said it was involved with 11 large projects underway at the PJM regional level, including 344 megawatts of gas generation, 257 MW of nuclear generation, 525 MW of storage and 6 MW of solar generation. PSE&G said another eight projects totaling roughly 1,700 MW of proposed solar, storage and offshore wind had been submitted to PJM Interconnection and were awaiting instructions from PJM officials to begin the study process in 2026.

Meanwhile, New Jersey continues to experience rapid growth in electricity demand, particularly from large data centers. In late January, NVIDIA and Livingston-based CoreWeave announced a $2 billion investment to expand their partnership and accelerate the buildout of AI-focused data center capacity. The companies aim to add more than five gigawatts, or enough to power roughly 5 million homes, by 2030. CoreWeave’s current projects include a $1.8 billion data center development at the former Merck campus in Kenilworth.

The surge is already showing up in state energy planning. In its early February press release, BPU officials said “New Jersey and the larger PJM Interconnection region face unprecedented electricity demand growth from data centers” and that demand has contributed to high electricity rates. The board said new generation capacity is urgently needed to address affordability challenges for residents and businesses.

In a Feb. 12 report from Bank of America, research analyst Ross Fowler said the surge in electricity demand from data centers could add 30 gigawatts of new load across the PJM region by 2030. Capital expenditures to meet that new demand have accelerated customer bill increases, he added, and affordability pressures are likely to be a key political issue in 2026.

For now, speed, not cost, often drives data center energy decisions, said Bank of America research analyst Dimple Gosai. In the same Feb. 12 report, Gosai said solar-and-battery projects can be built in one to two years, but delays connecting them to the grid can add five to seven years. Gas-fired plants cost more to run but can come online faster, making them more attractive as interconnection delays remain one of the biggest barriers to getting new energy projects online.

Despite the hurdles, the report said solar is still expected to remain the largest source of new power generation through at least 2027, with tens of gigawatts of new capacity projected nationwide.

For New Jersey residents, utilities’ responses to the BPU request could determine how quickly solar and storage systems can be connected to the local grid and how soon those systems begin reducing monthly electricity bills. Board officials said the responses will be used to identify regulatory changes and infrastructure upgrades that could speed the interconnection of solar and storage projects while accommodating rising demand.