On July 2, PJM, the grid operator serving 65 million people across 13 states, hit an all-time record peak load of 168,158 megawatts during one of the hottest days ever recorded. To keep the lights on, PJM requested rarely used federal emergency orders under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, authorizing it to pull data centers off the grid and onto their own backup generators and allowing power plants to exceed pollution limits.
Only the tactic isn’t so rare anymore. Since January, PJM has already requested the order three times. Nationally, it has been invoked 43 times in the past 14 months compared with the just 20 times it was utilized over the past nearly 50 years. With demand soaring, and supply not keeping pace, these emergency measures are becoming less of a one-time fix and more of a preview of how the grid operates going forward. If this is the new normal, it begs the question: What is the emergency backup plan?
From Rare To Routine
The seldom-used order directs utilities to keep aging power plants running past their scheduled retirement dates. On January 22, 2026, Secretary Chris Wright expanded the scope of the emergency orders by adding the ability to direct large customers to switch to their own backup generators during emergencies. Many of these backup generators are diesel, built as a last resort rather than a routine grid-balancing tool.
Why The Emergency Toolkit Keeps Getting Used
Almost all of the added demand strain in Virginia traces back to data centers. Its favorable zoning and tax incentives have made it a hub for data center development. Northern Virginia hosts more data center capacity than the next five largest U.S. markets combined.
Dominion Energy, the utility serving most of Virginia, serves roughly 450 data centers. It is currently navigating a 70-gigawatt interconnection queue, a number that dwarfs the utility’s all-time system peak of 24.7 gigawatts. About 25 gigawatts of the requested new electric load have projected connection dates, spread out through 2031. The remaining 45 gigawatts are still under study.
It’s Not Just Demand
The grid has never absorbed demand growth this fast and supply just can’t keep up. Much of the existing grid generation is aging and past its intended lifespan while new generation takes time to permit and build.
Extreme heat that drives demand up also pushes aging equipment toward failures known as forced generation outages. During the July 4th weekend, forced generation outages ran between 18,100 and 19,400 megawatts, well above the 12,800-megawatt average.
Excessive heat commonly triggers these unexpected failures. Transformers overheat, cooling water gets too warm to do its job efficiently and older generating units under continuous strain experience mechanical failure. The Eddystone units in Pennsylvania are a good example. Its two 380-megawatt units, running on natural gas and oil, were installed between 1967 and 1970. The DOE has repeatedly ordered them kept online past retirement. These end-of-life generators are representative of a fleet that was mostly built over half a century ago.
Gone Is The Wind
New generation takes years to plan, permit and build. In March 2026, the federal government paid TotalEnergies $928 million to cancel two offshore wind leases, including a project that would have delivered 1,342 megawatts into PJM by 2031. While that generation won’t impact the short term, it was on track to influence future capacity pricing.
What It’s Costing
PJM’s capacity price, the cost utilities pay to secure enough generation for the future, climbed from just shy of $29 per megawatt-day in the 2024/2025 auction to nearly $270 in 2025/2026. According to PJM’s independent market monitor, Monitoring Analytics, data centers drove 63% of that increase. The following auction climbed further, to just over $329 per megawatt-day for 2026/2027, the market’s price cap for a second consecutive year.
A Second Cost
Running old power plants and backup generators designed for rare emergencies carries a second cost: the air people breath. Northern Virginia has more than 9,000 backup generators capable of supplying data centers. Historically, permitting these units was lenient given the rarity of their use. Now, Virginia’s own environmental regulator is tightening emissions requirements for any generator permits filed on or after July 1, 2026. Backup generators, most of them diesel, don’t run clean, and the communities living closest to data centers absorb that cost too.
The New Normal
Emergency orders meant for rare situations are becoming a permanent tool as load outpaces supply. Data center demand keeps climbing. Pressure on the grid climbs along with it. So what is the emergency backup plan going forward? The reality is that there isn’t one beyond what is already in use. Much of the generation that keeps the lights on today is running years past the service life it was built for. Until the grid manages load better, data centers curtail their own, or new supply comes online, calling on emergency power isn’t the backup plan. It is the plan.