PJM Grid Faces Massive Power Drop and Emergency Curtailments

On July 22, a sudden loss of about 3 GW—roughly 3 % of total demand—occurred in the PJM Interconnection territory, affecting a region that serves 67 million people from Washington, D.C., to Chicago. The event began around 7:55 a.m. ET in northern Virginia, home to the world’s largest concentration of data centers, and took roughly ten minutes to fully stabilise. Customers reported flickering lights and appliance noise, but PJM said reliability was not compromised.

Earlier in the week, PJM issued emergency demand‑reduction orders, urging industrial and residential participants in emergency programs to cut usage as projected demand neared a historic peak of about 163 GW, close to the all‑time record of 165.5 GW. The U.S. Department of Energy authorized these measures, including curtailing data‑center loads and waiving certain emission limits. Spot wholesale electricity prices surged to over $2,500 per megawatt‑hour.

The incidents underscore growing regulatory focus on sudden demand drops from data centers and cryptocurrency miners, which can destabilise the grid and trigger voltage disturbances across the eastern United States.