PJM’s 2028/2029 Base Residual Auction, released this week, cleared at the price cap again: $325/MW‑day across the entire PJM footprint, securing about 138,318 MW of capacity (149,182 MW including FRR).
Headlines from this week’s auction:
- PJM procured 138,318 MW of unforced capacity (UCAP) from generation and demand response for the 2028/2029 delivery year.
- Fixed Resource Requirement (FRR) entities committed another 10,864 MW UCAP, bringing total capacity available to 149,182 MW UCAP—enough to meet forecast peak demand plus a reserve margin for roughly 67 million people.
- The clearing price hit the FERC‑approved cap: $325/MW‑day (UCAP) across the PJM region, about 2.5% lower than the prior 2027/2028 auction, which cleared at $333.44/MW‑day.
How does this compare to recent auctions?
Recent BRAs show a clear pattern: capacity is clearing at or very near the cap year after year.
| 2025/2026 | ~135,684 + 10,886 FRR | $269.92 | First big jump from $28.92.pjm+1 |
| 2026/2027 | ~134,311 + 11,933 FRR | $329.17 | Cap level, ~22% above 2025/26.hl+1 |
| 2027/2028 | ~134,479 (approx.) | $333.44 | Cap again; record pricing.ieefa+1 |
| 2028/2029 | 138,318 + 10,864 FRR | $325 | Cap level; slightly lower than 2027/28. |
These numbers confirm that capacity costs remain structurally high, even with the small 2.5% step down in the latest auction.
What it means for future electricity pricing
Capacity charges are a forward “insurance” cost embedded in customer bills, and at these levels they materially move total electricity costs. Analyses of recent PJM auctions indicate that cap‑level prices can translate into roughly 1.5–5% increases in retail electricity prices, depending on how local utilities pass capacity charges through to end‑users.utilitydive+3
So even though the 2028/2029 auction price dipped slightly from the prior year, it still sits near record highs and keeps upward pressure on business and residential supply rates over that delivery year. For your Market Signals audience, the key message is: the “cost of reliability” is staying elevated, which makes efficiency, demand management, and thoughtful procurement (e.g., managed index structures) increasingly important to control overall energy spend.
