Tristan Spinski for The New York Times By Feb. 12, 2025 Federal electricity regulators on Tuesday approved a proposal from the nation’s largest electric grid operator that could effectively give new natural gas power plants priority in connecting to the grid over renewable energy sources like solar and wind. The decision, by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, comes as the United States faces the prospect of the largest increase in electricity demand in recent decades. Technology companies are building hundreds of energy-hungry data centers across the country to power artificial intelligence models and other services. The ruling represents a win for companies involved in extracting natural gas and burning it to generate power — a group that strongly supported President Trump during last year’s election. Environmental groups and renewable energy developers criticized the decision by the five-person commission, which has a Republican chairman but a Democratic majority. The commission said it was approving the plan because it “reasonably addresses” a potential shortfall in the supply of power as demand for electricity increases. “The proposal neither mandates nor prohibits the development of any particular generating facility, and it neither authorizes nor requires the adoption of a specific mix of generation resources,” the commission said in approving the proposal from PJM Interconnection, which runs the country’s largest electric grid, serving 65 million people in 13 states including Illinois, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Many electric utilities and grid operators have been arguing that the country needs more natural gas power plants, saying they can provide electricity more reliably throughout the day than wind and solar farms that are more dependent on weather conditions. We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access.