PJM Declares Grid Emergency With 60 Gigawatts Offline

PJM Interconnection declared a low-level emergency for Tuesday and Wednesday as warm weather coincided with scheduled plant maintenance, with 60 gigawatts of generating capacity remaining offline. The conditions pushed spot prices at its Western hub above $1,000 per megawatt-hour Tuesday afternoon.

The spot price reached $1,021 per megawatt-hour, more than twice the day-ahead average for that hour. Wednesday’s day-ahead price increased 28% to $295.83 per megawatt-hour, its highest daily average since mid-July.

PJM’s grid serves 67 million people across an area stretching from the Mid-Atlantic to Chicago. In parts of the Midwest and South served by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, unseasonably warm temperatures, generator outages and below-normal wind generation also created challenging grid conditions.

Scheduled shutdowns for inspections, repairs and upgrades take place during periods of seasonally low demand. Unpredictable weather can leave fewer days for maintenance and construction on generation and transmission equipment.

PJM’s winter 2025-26 outlook projected a 7,500-megawatt reserve margin after expected outages, exports and other adjustments, compared with 8,700 megawatts the prior winter. The operator warned that electricity demand was growing faster than new generation.

Generation outages averaged 18 to 19 gigawatts during and after January 2026’s Winter Storm Fern, exceeding PJM’s seasonal expectations. Equipment failures were the leading cause of those outages. Tight natural gas supplies and scheduling constraints also complicated operations.

At the start of the week, the U.S. Department of Energy ordered PJM to dispatch specified generating units as needed to maintain reliability through mid-month.