A second extension of a Department of Energy emergency order lets data centers and other large flexible industrial loads run on backup power across the 13 state PJM Interconnection regional grid during heat emergencies.
The Department of Energy has now twice authorized the operator of the country's largest regional power grid to push data centers onto on-site generators during heat emergencies so residents can keep their power. The second extension of Order No. 202-26-33, issued under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act and extended through 11:59 p.m. ET on July 7, lets PJM Interconnection, the 13-state grid serving 67 million people across the mid-Atlantic, parts of the Midwest, and Washington, D.C., force large energy users to switch to backup generation within about 15 minutes of an emergency signal.
When PJM declares an EEA 3, the highest stage of its emergency alert ladder, meaning the grid is short on reserves and conventional demand response has been exhausted, transmission owners can now require "major facilities" to throttle their grid draw and run on-site. Most of those are data centers. A facility large enough to qualify under the order's designation can pull as much power as a small city — clusters that, in aggregate, have moved PJM's reserve margins closer to the line than the 2006 record ever did.
The order is explicit about who is exempt: hospitals, 911 call centers, water treatment plants, air traffic control towers, defense installations, and natural-gas infrastructure must stay on the grid regardless. The implicit counterpart is that data centers, cryptocurrency mines, and similar large flexible loads are treated as dispatchable assets for the duration of the emergency: resources the operator can call on, not just customers the operator serves. That distinction is the policy shift.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright framed the order as a reliability tool for "67 million Americans across 13 states and the District of Columbia," not as a preference for data centers over residents. PJM asked for the authority in applications dated June 27 and June 29. The grid came within roughly 2,900 megawatts of its all-time record of 165,600 megawatts on July 2; the original forecast had threatened 166,147 to 166,304 megawatts, which would have set a new high. PJM's own July 3 operations update confirms the grid executed emergency demand response during the evening peak but did not need to curtail data centers.
The reason the second extension matters is that it points to the operating mode of the next decade. Section 202(c) was designed as a last-resort crisis instrument: the federal equivalent of breaking the glass. PJM has now drawn on emergency authority two summers running; the most recent authorization, tracked by an industry aggregator of 202(c) orders, is built out to cover exactly the load class (flexible industrial and compute loads) that is growing fastest on the system.
That growth is what made the order necessary. E&E News reported earlier this year that data-center demand is colliding with record heat on the largest U.S. grids faster than planners anticipated. The order's designation of large flexible loads reflects where the new demand sits: not in residential cooling or commercial offices, but in clusters that individually can pull as much as a small city's worth of power and that, in aggregate, have moved PJM's reserve margins closer to the line than the 2006 record ever did.
The order covers the emergency. It does not address what created it. There is no change to how new data centers are sited or permitted, no requirement that the facilities benefiting from self-supply absorb the air-quality, water-use, or rate-base effects of running their on-site generation more often. The BGR syndication of the DoE and PJM action treated the load question as a national debate; the order itself treats it as a federal reliability lever, applied only when the grid is already stressed.
The watch item is whether the July 7 expiration holds. If PJM asks for a third extension before the holiday weekend ends, the implication is that 202(c) is no longer a break-the-glass tool. It is the operating procedure for a grid that now has to make room, every summer, for a load class it did not plan for.