The excessive heat in Ohio is causing locals to take extra precautions and affecting the state’s electric grid.
PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission organization serving Ohio and a dozen other states, sent a Maximum Generation Emergency Alert for Monday, asking power generators “to be ready to operate at maximum capacity if needed,” Reuters reported. This week, energy demand is predicted to surpass the grid operator’s original estimate for the summer, and it could reach a point where it pays customers to reduce their energy usage.
“PJM issues a Maximum Generation Emergency Alert a day in advance of conditions that may require all generators to operate at their maximum output capability,” PJM said in a release. “This alert does not require any action from customers.
“The alert is targeted at transmission/generation owners, who then determine if any maintenance or testing on any equipment can be deferred or canceled,” PJM added. “By deferring maintenance, the units stay online and continue to produce energy that is needed. The alert is also a procedural step that serves to notify neighboring regions that exports of electricity outside of the PJM footprint may need to be curtailed and they should plan accordingly.”
While the summer heat is adding to the strain on the grid, WBNS-TV reported that large-scale economic development projects, such as the Intel chip plant, Google data center, and an Anduril facility, drive resource demand.
“At the current pace, we are projecting a shortfall of energy,” WBNS-TV quoted David Souder, executive director of PJM operations, as saying. “We really need to keep the generation that is scheduled to retire online until we can basically serve the load reliably.”
As of Sunday, PJM, part of the Eastern Interconnection grid operating an electric transmission system, expected a forecasted load across the regional transmission organization of roughly 160,000 MW on Monday, 158,000 MW on Tuesday, and 155,000 MW on Wednesday. It is higher than what PJM said a few days earlier when it projected the load would reach about 158,000 MW on Monday.
“That’s when we look at potentially becoming short our reserves and the need to load what we call demand response,” Souder said, according to the station’s report. “Demand response is a product where we will pay in-use customers, whether they be residential or commercial customers, to actually reduce their load and demand to maintain reliable systems.”
The announcement isn’t necessarily a surprise, as PJM previously indicated its resources would be stretched thin this summer. In May, PJM said “extreme scenarios featuring record demand” could require it "to call on contracted demand response resources to reduce electricity use.”
The grid operator predicted summer energy use, or load, would peak at slightly more than 154,000 MW. It said it “should have adequate reserves to maintain reliability.”
However, in May, the operator gave a caveat, saying: “This season also marks the first time in PJM’s annual assessment, however, that available generation capacity may fall short of required reserves in an extreme planning scenario that would result in an all-time PJM peak load of more than 166,000 MW.”
In its May release, the grid operator acknowledged, “Under such circumstances, PJM would call on contracted demand response programs to meet its required reserve needs,” paying customers who opt to reduce their electricity use during “system emergencies.”
A megawatt can power roughly 800 houses, and cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and other digital services are helping to drive increased demand for power in Ohio and elsewhere.
The PJM prediction follows an earlier finding in the Energy Competitiveness Report published by the Ohio Business Roundtable. It found that PJM could face an electricity shortfall by 2027.
