On 13 October 2026, Monitoring Analytics, the independent monitor of the PJM electricity market (the grid and wholesale market operator for part of the eastern and midwestern United States), filed comments in docket EC26-151 with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The docket concerns the application, filed on 12 August under section 203 of the Federal Power Act, for approval of KKR's purchase of EDF power solutions' US and Canadian operations, which the monitor describes as EDF's renewable activities and assets in North America. The monitor recommends approving the transaction only if KKR commits to keeping the capacity and energy of EDF's assets located in the PJM region in the PJM markets.

This is the opinion of one party in the case, not a decision: FERC will rule. The monitor is asking for almost exactly what the Commission refused in late July in another acquisition, that of a Maryland power plant by TeraWulf. The difference between the two cases hinges on a specific criterion, and that is what makes the EDF-KKR transaction a test case.

938 MW sold to Amazon, Microsoft and a utility

EDF announced on 30 June 2026 the signing of the sale agreement. The equity value is approximately $4.2 billion, with up to $0.39 billion in earn-outs, and the transaction is expected to reduce the group's net financial debt by about $5.5 billion. Completion remains subject to regulatory approvals and could occur in the second half of 2026. Bernard Fontana, EDF's CEO, places it within the group's "portfolio rotation strategy".

In PJM, the scope being sold represents 938 MW, spread across four project companies. The monitor's filing, which draws on the application, details three of them. Fox Squirrel operates a 577 MW solar plant in Madison County, Ohio, whose entire output is sold to Amazon Energy under three power purchase agreements (PPAs) running until 2043 and 2044. Kelly Creek, a 184 MW wind farm in Illinois, sells its output to Indiana Michigan Power until May 2036. Pilot Hill, 176.9 MW of wind also in Illinois, sells to Microsoft until 2035.

These contracts are not enough to reassure the monitor. "No applicable law or regulation" prohibits modifying them, terminating them, or using the capacity for direct supply to data centres, it writes.

KKR, electricity buyer and data centre builder

KKR co-owns CyrusOne with Global Infrastructure Partners, a BlackRock subsidiary; according to CyrusOne's website cited by the monitor, the operator runs several data centres in PJM totalling 398 MW, plus two in development. On 11 June, KKR launched Helix Digital Infrastructure with the Kuwait Investment Authority, NVIDIA and Vistra, a company tasked with financing and delivering AI infrastructure (data centres, power generation, networks), with over $10 billion in commitments. KKR is also among the six financiers of the AI computing infrastructure programme announced by NVIDIA on 10 August.

In generation, KKR is already affiliated with 143 MW in PJM, including two solar plants 50% owned with TotalEnergies, and plans an additional 400 MW whose exact location is unknown, likely in the PJM West submarket according to an appendix to the application cited by the monitor. The total would then reach 543 MW. On 12 October, TotalEnergies announced the addition of 700 MW of solar in Texas and Ohio to its US joint venture equally owned with KKR; the monitor notes that it is unknown what share will be in PJM.

Taking plants out of the market to supply its own data centres would, according to the monitor, be a form of physical capacity withholding that would make PJM markets "less competitive" and increase costs for other customers. The application, it stresses, does not say whether KKR intends to use this capacity to directly serve data centre load or leave it in the market. Accepting the condition would be, it writes, "a sign of good faith" from KKR about its intentions in PJM.

Morgantown, the 29 July precedent

The monitor has made this demand before. In docket EC26-58, TeraWulf, a data centre developer, was buying through its subsidiary Chesapeake Data the Morgantown plant, four oil-fired units of about 216 MW in Maryland. Monitoring Analytics asked that the buyer commit not to withdraw this capacity from the PJM market to supply data centres. On 29 July, FERC authorised the transaction (196 FERC ¶ 61,075) and rejected the condition.

The Commission examines whether a transaction creates "the incentive and ability" to withhold generation; TeraWulf owned no plants in PJM that would have given it an interest in withdrawing Morgantown to raise capacity prices for its other assets. It added that withdrawing a plant from the market is governed by the PJM tariff, including the rules on co-located load it ordered in docket EL25-49.

Read in light of that order, the new element in the 13 October filing is the inventory of plants KKR already owns or controls in PJM. TeraWulf was also a data centre developer; it was the absence of any generation in the region that underpinned the incentive analysis. The reasoning adopted in July therefore does not transfer directly to KKR. The 143 MW at stake remain small, however, partly 50% owned or merely affiliated, and FERC may deem them negligible compared with the 938 MW being acquired.

A capacity market already in deficit

According to PJM's report on the 2028/2029 capacity auction, published on 14 July, total committed capacity is 6,831.3 MW (in unforced capacity, UCAP) below the reliability requirement, after a deficit of 6,516 MW in the previous auction. The reserve margin stands at 14.4%, against a 20% target, and all prices hit the cap of $325 per MW per day. Monitoring Analytics counts three consecutive auctions below target and considers that the effect of massive and sudden data centre load growth on competition and reliability is "the most critical problem" in PJM markets.

The PJM tariff does not explicitly address this case, the monitor notes. PJM staff have publicly stated, a position the monitor disputes, that plant retirement rules do not apply to withdrawing a plant to supply data centres; PJM would then not have to analyse reliability, nor the monitor market power. Lacking a comprehensive solution, it advocates a transaction-by-transaction approach and invokes a 1996 precedent: the merger policy statement (Order No. 592), by which FERC made open access to the grid a condition of merger approval. The commitment sought from KKR would be, it says, "less restrictive" than the open access obligation was in the mid-1990s.

Sixteen acquisition dockets commented on since January

As of 14 October, Monitoring Analytics' 2026 filings page lists comments since January in sixteen transaction authorisation dockets (EC prefix), two of them addressed in a single filing. In several, the position is tougher than for KKR: the monitor recommended rejecting NextEra's purchase of Dominion on 29 September, and SoftBank's purchase of ArcLight on 21 August.

Every purchase of plants in PJM by an investor involved in data centres now exposes FERC to this type of request. Its response in docket EC26-151 could indicate whether some 140 MW owned or affiliated in the region, by a buyer that also co-owns data centres there, is enough to change its analysis of the incentive to withdraw plants from the market. For EDF, whose completion could occur in the second half, the stakes are primarily the timeline and conditions attached to the authorisation.

The monitor argues that the commitment would have no effect on the applicants if they do not intend to withdraw this capacity. The applicants, it writes, "provided no information" on how such a commitment would affect their plans.

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