Power Grid Emergency Hits MD: What To Know

Updated at 6:41 p.m.

Maryland energy regulators are operating under an emergency order for the next few days as part of an effort to curb the risk of power outages during a stretch of warmer-than-usual days.

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Issued by the U.S. Department of Energy, the emergency order allows PJM Interconnection to permit power plants to bypass seasonal maintenance operations to alleviate stresses on transmission lines.

The emergency order, in effect through Friday, impacts more than 67 million people across 13 states and Washington, D.C.

Residents are not being asked to take additional action.

While mass blackouts aren't necessarily imminent, the Department of Energy said 35 gigawatts of unused backup generation remains available nationwide in the event they take place.

"This order will help ensure millions of American families and businesses across the mid-Atlantic have access to affordable, reliable, and secure electricity by making additional power generation, including backup power, available to use as needed," U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said in a statement.

Related: MD Faces Summer-Like Heat Before Rain, Chilly Temps Return

As the region's power grid operator, PJM Interconnection has faced increased energy demand that complicated maintenance typically carried out during the fall months.

In a statement to Patch, a PJM spokesperson said planned maintenance outages were becoming a reliability concern beyond the typical demands during the summer and winter months.

"The conditions we have seen in both September and October reflect the reality that PJM and other grid operators are facing: increased baseload electricity demand is growing faster than new capacity can come onto the system; and unseasonable weather patterns are providing fewer days to perform important maintenance or construction on the generation and transmission equipment serving our footprint," PJM said in a statement to Patch.

Sweltering heat previously forced PJM to take action in mid-September.

Two periods earlier flagged by PJM — Aug. 31 to Sept. 4 and Sept. 15–18 — forced the operator to "balance reliability against planned transmission and generation limitations, as well as exports to neighboring systems."

It was on Sept. 17 that PJM recorded a "system peak" shortly before 5 p.m., with system outages of 20.7% occurring the next day.

Patch reached out to the Energy Department for comment.