The nation's largest electrical grid, Northeast PJM Interconnection, which serves 67 million people from the Mid-Atlantic through parts of the South and Midwest, expects demand to hit a summer record of 166.3 gigawatts Thursday evening, just above its 2006 record. It's planning for "unlikely but plausible" demand of up to 169 GW, backed by 180.2 GW of generation and programs that pay customers to cut usage in emergencies. On Tuesday, the Trump administration, granting a request from PJM, declared a power emergency for the grid, Bloomberg reports. The order allows power plants in the region to exceed environmental regulations while operating at maximum capacity.

New York's grid operator says peak demand there could near its 34 GW record, while Midwestern operator MISO may also test its all-time high and will lean on PJM for help. PJM warns of a "fundamental mismatch" between fast-rising demand and slow-to-build new plants. On Monday evening, in a sign of the strain on PJM, wholesale prices briefly spiked from less than $40 per megawatt-hour earlier in the day to above $1,600 amid severe transmission congestion, Reuters reports. (This content was created with the help of AI. Read our AI policy.)

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