MARKET MONITOR FINDS PJM WHOLESALE ELECTRICITY MARKETS COMPETITIVE

2025 Quarterly State of the Market Report for PJM: January through June

EAGLEVILLE, Pa., Aug. 14, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- PJM Interconnection's wholesale electric energy market produced competitive results during the first six months of 2025, according to the 2025 Quarterly State of the Market Report for PJM: January through June released today by Monitoring Analytics, LLC, the Independent Market Monitor for PJM.

The Independent Market Monitor, Joseph Bowring, announced findings of the report today. The report is the Independent Market Monitor's assessment of the competitiveness of the wholesale electricity markets managed by PJM in 13 states and the District of Columbia. The report includes analysis of market structure, participant behavior and market performance for each of the PJM markets.

"Our analysis concludes that the results of the PJM Energy Market were competitive in the first six months of 2025," Bowring said. "Our analysis concludes that the results of the capacity market auction for the 2025/2026 Delivery Year were not competitive."

Energy prices increased in the first six months of 2025, from the first six months of 2024. The real-time load-weighted average LMP in the first six months of 2025 increased $20.05 per MWh, or 63.2 percent from the first six months of 2024, from $31.70 per MWh to $51.75 per MWh.

Of the $20.05 per MWh increase, $11.61 per MWh (57.9 percent) was in the fuel and consumables cost components of LMP, $3.15 per MWh (15.7 percent) was in the transmission constraint penalty factor component of LMP, $1.52 per MWh (7.6 percent) was in the market power components of LMP, -$0.19 per MWh (-1.0 percent) was in the emissions cost components of LMP, and $1.68 per MWh (8.4 percent) was in the scarcity component of LMP. The pre-emergency demand response called on by PJM during the hot weather days in June increased the LMP by $1.25 per MWh, 6.2 percent of the increase in LMP. The LMP increase would have been higher if PJM had not imposed a $3,700.00 per MWh administrative cap. The administrative cap reduced the LMP by $0.17 per MWh, a 0.9 percent decrease.

The total cost of wholesale power increased $22.30 per MWh, or 41.4 percent, from $53.86 per MWh in the first six months of 2024 to $76.15 per MWh in the first six months of 2025. Energy (64.6 percent), capacity (8.4 percent) and transmission charges (24.7 percent) are the three largest components of the total cost of wholesale power, comprising 97.7 percent of the total cost per MWh in the first six months of 2025. Starting in the third quarter of 2019, the cost of transmission per MWh of wholesale power has been higher than the cost of capacity.

Energy prices in PJM in the first six months of 2025 were set, on average, by units operating at, or close to, their short run marginal costs, although this was not always the case. This is evidence of generally competitive behavior and competitive market outcomes, although high markups for some marginal units did affect prices.

The real-time hourly average load in the first six months of 2025 increased by 3.6 percent from the first six months of 2024, from 87,764 MWh to 90,914 MWh.

In the first six months of 2025, generation from coal units increased 18.2 percent, generation from natural gas units decreased 3.0 percent, generation from oil units increased 35.6 percent, generation from wind units increased 5.6 percent, and generation from solar units increased 49.0 percent compared to the first six months of 2024.

Net revenue is a key measure of overall market performance as well as a measure of the incentive to invest in generation to serve PJM markets. Theoretical energy market net revenues increased by 37 percent for a new combustion turbine (CT), increased by 42 percent for a new combined cycle (CC), increased by 192 percent for a new coal plant (CP), increased by 54 percent for a new nuclear plant, increased by 688 percent for a new diesel (DS), increased by 67 percent for a new onshore wind installation, increased by 67 percent for a new offshore wind installation and increased by 67 percent for a new solar installation.

Total energy uplift charges increased by $398.5 million, or 235.2 percent, in the first six months of 2025 compared to the first six months of 2024, from $169.5 million to $568.0 million.

When there are binding transmission constraints and locational energy price differences, customers pay more for energy than generation is paid to produce that energy. The difference is congestion revenue. Congestion revenue belongs to customers and should be returned to customers. Total congestion increased by $563.2 million or 80.3 percent, from $701.5 million in the first six months of 2024 to $1,264.7 million in the first six months of 2025. Only 55.8 percent of total congestion paid by customers for the 2024/2025 planning period was returned to customers through the ARR and self-scheduled FTR revenues offset. The goal of the FTR market design should be to ensure that customers have the rights to 100 percent of the congestion that customers pay. Customers have received $4.9 billion less in congestion revenues than customers should have received, from the 2011/2012 planning period through the 2024/2025 planning period, as a result of flaws in the PJM FTR market design.

The Independent Market Monitor (also known as the IMM, the Market Monitoring Unit or the MMU) evaluates the operation of PJM's wholesale markets to identify ineffective market rules and tariff provisions, proposes improvements to market rules and tariff provisions when needed, monitors compliance with and implementation of the market rules, identifies potential anticompetitive behavior by market participants and provides comprehensive market analysis critical for informed policy and decision making. Joseph Bowring, the Market Monitor, ensures the independence and objectivity of the monitoring program.

For a copy of the State of the Market Report, visit Monitoring Analytics at: https://www.monitoringanalytics.com/reports/PJM_State_of_the_Market/2025.shtml

SOURCE Monitoring Analytics, LLC