Heat-Stressed Power Grids for 100 Million North Americans

(Bloomberg) — Power grids serving more than 100 million North Americans are bracing for a spike in demand as electrical equipment scheduled for repairs takes on a disproportionate amount of heat.

According to the US National Weather Service, temperatures are more than 20 °F (11 °C) above normal in some areas served by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator.

According to the prediction of St. Louis will reach a high of 37°C and stay under the heat until late Saturday, according to the National Weather Service. That’s about 18°F warmer than normal for this time of year.

Meanwhile, the neighboring grid managed by PJM Interconnection LLC, which includes Chicago, Washington DC and Virginia’s Data Center Alley, issued warnings that backup power sources are under pressure in some areas and ordered some large non-residents to cut back.

The scorching weather came just as plant operators were scheduled to shut down key systems for fall maintenance. MISO reported about 51 gigawatts of generation outages on Thursday, even though demand is expected to reach 105.2 gigawatts.

PJM expects electricity use to exceed 132 gigawatts, with nearly 37 going offline.

PJM officials on Wednesday asked the U.S. Department of Energy to waive some emissions rules to allow the plants to operate at full capacity. The agency also authorized the deployment of backup resources on Thursday to mitigate potential shortfalls.

Spot electricity prices on America’s largest grid jumped above $4,300 per megawatt hour in the benchmark West Node just after 6pm local time on Wednesday.

Aging power plants are coming off a summer of brutal heat that prompted repeated federal orders to operate at full capacity. This puts additional pressure on the system, which faces increasing demand in industry and data centers.

PJM’s generation fleet is “starting to show signs of its age as it struggles to stay operational,” said Gary Cunningham, CEO of Tradition Energy.

Wholesale electricity prices are likely to remain elevated through Thursday in Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and western Pennsylvania, Cunningham added.

Fall in the Northern Hemisphere is usually an ideal time to perform maintenance on propulsion equipment, as milder weather makes it easier to use air conditioning. But erratic weather coupled with human-induced climate change and natural phenomena such as El Niño are pushing up the repair calendar.

Power plant operators are increasingly finding that it does not exist in the off-season. The AI boom is also increasing the overall demand for electricity, which means critical equipment doesn’t get much of a break.

The unusual weather “plays well into the narrative that PJM needs more generation capacity, and needs it NOW, before new data center demands come in,” Cunningham wrote in an email.

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