PJM, the largest U.S. power grid operator, said it ordered generators to run at maximum output and bring idle power plants online immediately on Thursday evening, as it faced escalating stress from a heat dome.
PJM’s orders, detailed on its emergency procedures website, were aimed at preserving reliability as it sought to maintain power on a grid serving 67 million people across the Mid-Atlantic, South and Washington, D.C., regions and the world’s largest concentration of data centers.
Even before this week’s heat wave that sent temperatures soaring toward 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), PJM had been straining to overhaul a system pushed to the brink by surging energy consumption by data centers and electric vehicles.
My water heater has a remote control that FPL can switch off to manage stress on the power grid, but the slop machines are allowed to stay on full blast?
Kinda…. Different areas are probably different, and no part of this should be construed as defending the insanity around AI, but in my area, data centers are typically part of load-shedding agreements with the local power utility, and they’re likely to simply switch to backup generators to help mitigate demand peaks. In some cases they may back-feed their excess generator power to the grid on a short term basis. Typically speaking there are financial incentives, fees, or offsets that they receive as compensation.
So yes, they’re probably on at full blast, but they’re probably powering it themselves so it’s not a direct impact on grid health.