East Coast Heat Wave Prompts Grid Operator to Request Federal Emergency Powers

PJM Interconnection, the regional transmission organization serving more than 67 million customers in 13 states and the District of Columbia, declared an energy emergency on Monday, May 18, 2026. The declaration followed forecasts of temperatures in the nineties across much of the eastern United States.

At the same time, 40,400 megawatts of generation capacity remained offline for scheduled maintenance. PJM projected reserves below 5,800 megawatts during Monday and Tuesday evening peaks against expected demand near 135,000 megawatts. The operator had already recalled all available outages and issued a maximum generation and load management alert.

PJM filed an emergency request Saturday under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act asking Energy Secretary Chris Wright to order data centers to run on backup diesel generators instead of drawing from the grid. The request is intended to free grid capacity during the heat-driven demand surge.

Real-time wholesale electricity prices in parts of the PJM region briefly exceeded $2,000 per megawatt-hour on Monday morning. , suburbs remained near or above $1,000 per megawatt-hour through much of the afternoon. Those figures are more than four times the highest prices recorded during February temperature swings.

Consumers will not see the full immediate effect of the spot-market spikes, but the costs can influence future utility rates.