Pity the grid operator PJM Interconnection. For decades it worked quietly and in the background, matching electricity demand with supply. Meanwhile, customers enjoyed some of the lowest electricity prices in the United States.

No longer. Politicians, businesses, households, and power companies think it needs an overhaul. Even PJM is in agreement.

PJM released a white paper this week that said the region “has years, not decades” to make fundamental changes to the way it operates. “The current situation is not tenable,” PJM CEO David Mills wrote in a forward to the report.

Normally, this sort of wonky report would land on the desks of a few legislators and regulators. But PJM’s territory includes a large number of data centers, including the compute-dense region of Northern Virginia. What happens to PJM will send ripples throughout the tech world.

The 70-page report is an exercise in navel gazing. But despite the deep introspection, not everyone is convinced the organization is up to the task of overhauling itself. One utility, American Electric Power (AEP), is considering pulling out of PJM altogether.

“The current state of PJM’s performance and stakeholder approval process does not give me great confidence that these issues will be resolved anytime soon,” Bill Fehrman, AEP’s CEO, said in an earnings call Tuesday. “In fact, if something is not done now, I expect we could still be having these same conversations in 10 years. The PJM market worked very well when supply exceeded demand; we are now in a very different time.”

Here’s what changed

Cloud computing and AI have begun to strain PJM’s existing generating capacity. Against the backdrop of surging demand, PJM paused applications in 2022 for new generating sources to connect to its grid, citing a years-long backlog. Just as the need for electricity was beginning to grow for the first time in decades, the grid operator prevented new sources from even applying to get hooked up.

PJM isn’t entirely to blame for the lengthy backlog. Many interconnection requests are duplicates — developers will propose essentially the same project in different grid regions to see which gets approved first. PJM’s sclerotic approval process meant that of the more than 300 gigawatts worth of projects in the queue in 2022, only 103 gigawatts ended up signing agreements, and only 23 gigawatts have been connected so far. Most developers withdrew rather than wait it out.

Demand in the region remains so large that, since PJM recently reopened the queue, power companies and project developers have filed more than 800 interconnection requests for 220 gigawatts worth of new power. PJM might have been able to pause new requests, but it did nothing to tamp down demand for new interconnections.

Here’s what PJM is proposing

In its white paper, PJM has proposed three options. One would require utilities and power generators to essentially make bigger, longer-term commitments. (PJM currently requires them to commit to supplying a certain amount of electricity for three years.) The second option would change reliability guarantees for customers — those who pay less might get their power cut first. The last choice would try to move PJM closer to a real-time market, where supply and demand dictate prices, without entirely eliminating stability from long-term contracts.

It’s hard to see how PJM emerges looking good in any of these scenarios.

First, the way PJM operates its market has somewhat locked it into a three-year mindset. That seemed to work when natural gas power plants were replacing coal-fired generators, but today solar and batteries can be installed at least two to three times faster. What’s more, the shortage of natural gas turbines means that power plants planned today won’t be able to install the equipment until the early 2030s. Plus, prices of turbines have skyrocketed on the back of demand for hyperscalers. Given those realities, it’s hard to see suppliers wanting to commit to an even longer timeline.

The second option would result in PJM splitting its territory, its customers, or both into groups of “haves” and “have nots.” For people and businesses stretched thin by years of rising utility bills, it’s hard to see them being happy with downgraded service. Politicians have seized on rising power prices and anti-data center animus, and so they are unlikely to back this one.

The last approach has the most nuance, but it also sounds like PJM trying to be all things to all people. It’s the type of plan that seems like it should appeal to large utilities like American Electric Power, giving them the opportunity to play in short-term markets to make more profit while also benefiting from predictable long-term contracts — having their cake and eating it, too. Yet if AEP, one of the largest utilities in PJM territory, isn’t thrilled with the menu before it, it’s hard to see how PJM can pick that one either.

Rising demand for data centers has just happened to coincide with disruption from renewables and batteries, which continue to drop in cost. Those trends are now colliding with an organization that doesn’t want — or doesn’t know how — to change the way it operates.

PJM may have thought its white paper mea culpa would buy it some time. But with politicians threatening price caps and utilities balking at future participation, the grid operator may not have years to sort things out. It’s looking like a messy few years ahead.

After years of hints and preparation, the Uber-backed electric bike and scooter rental startup Lime has filed for an initial public offering.

The company, which is incorporated as Neutron Holdings, Inc., has eyed the public markets for at least five years. CEO Wayne Ting last spoke to TechCrunch in 2023 about the prospect of an IPO, noting at the time that Lime had the economics, the growth, and the profitability to take the startup public. All that was required was proper market conditions.

That day has apparently arrived.

The company intends to list on ​Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “LIME.” Lime did not share terms of the offering, which was filed Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Lime’s IPO filing shows a company with growing revenue, but not yet profitability. The company generated $521 million in revenue in 2023, $686.6 million in 2024, and $886.7 million last year.

Its net losses were $122.3 million in 2023, but that line item has narrowed the past two years. Lime reported net losses of $33.9 million in 2024 and $59.3 million in 2025. Lime also reported it had free cash flow the past three years; its free cash flow was $104 million in 2025, nearly double from the previous year due to an increase in cash provided by operating activities.

And yet, the company has a significant amount of debt. Lime reported around $1 billion in current liabilities in the filing. Roughly $846 million of that is due by the end of 2026, and the company wrote that it does not have “sufficient liquidity” to pay that. (Lime reported having $261 million in cash on March 31, 2026.) As a result, the company warned investors that it has “substantial doubt” that it can continue as a going concern, and that it needs to go public to raise funds to pay that debt — or find other sources of financing.

Lime, which was founded in 2017, has deep ties to Uber. The ride-hailing and delivery giant led Lime’s $170 million funding round in 2020. As part of that deal, Lime acquired Jump, the electric bike and scooter division that Uber bought back in 2018 for around $200 million. After the acquisition Jump’s name disappeared and its assets were absorbed by Lime. In the years since, Lime has integrated more closely with Uber.

The acquisition also propelled Lime’s expansion. The company, which lets users rent scooters and e-bikes through its app, is now in 230 cities and 29 countries.

Lime’s relationship with Uber has also been a steady tailwind for the business. Under its exclusive relationship, Lime vehicles are featured as a ride option within the Uber app in nearly all of its shared markets. A chunk of Lime’s revenue — about 14.3% last year — came through its partnership with Uber, the SEC document shows.