PJM Interconnection, operator of the US' largest grid, has asked power-plant owners to defer 10,000MW of planned outages to maintain reserve margins during this week's unseasonably warm temperatures.
Generation outages are expected to total about 62,000MW on 14 October, the date for which PJM issued a maintenance outage recall. About 10,000MW of capacity was deferred to arrive at that sum, PJM said in an email to Argus. PJM forecast peak demand at roughly 111,500MW on 13 October and projected reserves would narrow to within about 900MW of required levels on 14 October even with the outage deferrals.
PJM issued multiple emergency alerts covering 12-14 October, warning customers that the grid faces tight conditions. In response to the alerts, the US Department of Energy authorized PJM to temporarily suspend environmental restrictions, allowing it to implement emergency reliability measures, including asking some generators and transmission lines to remain operational or requesting some large-load consumers switch to back up generation if needed.
The alerts come as PJM grapples with growing electricity demand and a shrinking window for routine maintenance, which typically occurs during North America's spring or fall seasons. Increasing baseload demand and increasingly unpredictable weather patterns are making it difficult to perform maintenance during periods that historically carried lower reliability risks. Earlier this year, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation warned that the nation's grid operators are increasingly facing reliability challenges outside of traditional peak demand periods, known as shoulder seasons.
It noted that this year's March was the warmest in 132 years of recordkeeping, making the grid more vulnerable during a period when the system is not typically configured for high demand.
"This is the new reality that grid operators are facing," PJM said. "Planned maintenance season will continue to present risks that we formerly faced only in summer and winter."
Temperatures across much of the PJM region, which spans 13 states along the mid-Atlantic and into the Midwest and the District of Columbia, are expected to remain above seasonal norms through mid-October, boosting cooling demand. The winter heating season traditionally begins on 1 November.
