PJM Cleared 2,115 Megawatts on Its Fast Track. Most of It Is Batteries.

PJM Interconnection accepted the first three projects into its Expedited Interconnection Track on October 8, clearing a combined 2,115 megawatts of nameplate capacity into the fast-track study path that federal regulators authorized in June. Two of the three are utility-scale battery storage plants. The third is an uprate at an existing natural gas station. PJM expects all three in service by mid-2029.

Both battery projects belong to ENGIE IR Holdings. Wayne, an 860-megawatt plant interconnecting at 345 kilovolts, is in Crawford, Pennsylvania, inside the PENELEC zone. Galion, 800 megawatts and also at 345 kilovolts, is in Morrow, Ohio, inside the ATSI zone. The third project, Hunterstown, adds 455 megawatts at an existing 810-megawatt combined-cycle plant in Adams, Pennsylvania, in the Met-Ed zone, and ties in at 500 kilovolts. LS Power acquired Hunterstown in 2024.

Eligibility for the track is deliberately narrow. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved it on June 9 and PJM opened the application window on July 31. A project must be a new or uprated capacity resource of at least 250 megawatts of unforced capacity, the amount credited toward reliability. It must carry a commitment from the state's primary siting authority to help expedite permitting, and it must be able to begin operating within three years. PJM will accept up to 10 requests per calendar year in 2026 and 2027, and the track then sunsets. Developers are expected to execute a generation interconnection agreement within roughly 10 months of filing.

The conventional queue moves far slower. PJM reports 220 gigawatts across more than 800 projects under study in the first cycle of its new process, about 53 gigawatts holding signed interconnection agreements, and 30 gigawatts still to process this year. Agreements on that path take one to two years before construction planning begins.

The compressed schedule matters more to the electrical scope than the megawatt totals do. A battery plant terminating at 345 kilovolts is substation and medium-voltage work: a high-voltage switchyard, main power transformers, collection circuits out to the enclosures, direct-current cabling and combiner terminations inside them, and protection, relay, and controls commissioning before anything is energized. Uprates like Hunterstown are brownfield work at an operating plant, where switchgear, generator leads, and protection changes are staged into scheduled outage windows under energized-work procedures rather than built on open ground.

Two states absorb the hiring, and they absorb it on a clock. All three sites have to reach operation inside PJM's three-year window, which pulls engineering, procurement, and crew commitments forward into 2027. Pennsylvania carries two of the projects and Ohio the third, both in rural counties that draw traveling manpower. The demand is for electricians with high-voltage termination, cable testing, relay, and commissioning experience, not building wiring. Seven more requests can still clear this year, and 10 more in 2027. The first 2,115 megawatts are already on the clock.