{"id":605008,"date":"2026-05-20T21:40:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=605008"},"modified":"2026-05-20T21:40:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:40:00","slug":"largest-us-electric-grid-gets-approval-to-curtail-data-centers-during-hot-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=605008","title":{"rendered":"Largest US Electric Grid Gets Approval To Curtail Data Centers During Hot Weather"},"content":{"rendered":"

Largest US Electric Grid Gets Approval To Curtail Data Centers During Hot Weather<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

By Ethan Howland of Utility Dive<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Power plant and transmission owners often take their facilities offline in the spring for maintenance so they are prepared for the summer, PJM noted. The largest US electricity grid operator said it expected power plants totaling more than 40 GW would be offline for planned outages on May 18.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

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An Amazon Web Services data center in Stone Ridge, Va. The PJM Interconnection will be able to curtail data centers and other large loads that have backup generation under an emergency order issued May 18, 2026, by the U.S. Department of Energy<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe projected level of generation outages coupled with the forecasted demand raises a significant risk of emergency conditions that could jeopardize electric reliability and public safety,\u201d<\/strong> PJM said.<\/p>\n

The curtailments would be a last resort before ordering rolling blackouts, according to the DOE\u2019s order, issued under the Federal Power Act\u2019s section 202(c). Only large energy consumers with backup generation would be affected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe employment of this backup generation\u00a0<\/strong>is expected to reduce stress on the grid,\u201d the DOE said. \u201cThis will permit orderly, safe, and secure operations during PJM\u2019s hot weather conditions.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Next summer the Eastern seaboard will look like North Korea at night thanks to chatbots pic.twitter.com\/NEY97pa1LB<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 6, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are significant amounts of backup generation in the United States that have remained largely untapped during grid emergencies, according to the DOE.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeployment of backup generation resources (whether auxiliary, standby, directly-connected, battery storage or other, and whether synchronized or not to the bulk power system) at data centers (including, but not limited to, hyperscaler facilities), and at other large load industrial and commercial customer sites, can prevent avoidable blackouts, thereby saving lives and reducing costs to the American people,\u201d the department said.<\/p>\n

In January, the DOE issued similar emergency orders<\/a> to PJM, Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress, and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.<\/p>\n

PJM said on Monday<\/a> that it had issued \u201cmaximum generation\u201d and \u201cload management\u201d alerts for May 19<\/strong>, with a \u201chot weather\u201d alert in place for most of the PJM footprint.<\/p>\n

Also, the grid operator activated demand response customers in parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Dominion regions. The grid operator said it called on pre-emergency demand response for the Baltimore Gas and Electric, Dominion and Potomac Electric Power Co. areas on Monday to address local transmission constraints and to preserve the run-time of generators that will be needed for the hot weather and higher electricity demand expected on Tuesday and Wednesday.<\/p>\n

For three days starting on Tuesday, PJM expected its peak load to hit 134,027 MW, 135,961 MW and 119,103 MW.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nWed, 05\/20\/2026 – 17:40<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Largest US Electric Grid Gets Approval To Curtail Data Centers During Hot Weather By Ethan Howland of Utility Dive Power plant and transmission owners often take their facilities offline in the spring for maintenance so they are prepared for the summer, PJM noted. The largest US electricity grid operator said it expected power plants totaling… Continue reading Largest US Electric Grid Gets Approval To Curtail Data Centers During Hot Weather<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":605009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-605008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-border-security","category-immigration","category-immigration-reform","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=605008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/605009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=605008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=605008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=605008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}