PJM Named the Zones Where It Was Tightest. Two of Them Are Maryland’s.

An Emergency Declared in Mild Weather

On 12 October, Energy Secretary Chris Wright signed Order No. 202-26-50 under section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, on an application PJM filed the day before. It is effective 13 through 16 October, and renewal has to be requested before it expires.

Nobody lost power. PJM’s own alert said it “does not require any action from customers.” The order exists to avoid firm load shedding, not to announce it.

The interesting document is not the news coverage but the order itself, which quotes PJM’s application. Three things in it are worth your attention if you pay a Maryland electricity bill.

1. PJM Named the Tight Zones

PJM told DOE it was “forecasted to be within 900 MW of its reserve margin on October 14,” with anticipated generation outages reaching 61,591 MW across the system — and, in PJM’s words, “with the most acute issues in the BGE, PEPCO, and Dominion zones.”

BGE and Pepco are Maryland. That is the operator telling the federal government, in a filing, which part of its footprint it was most worried about.

The transmission detail points the same way. PJM flagged limits on north-to-south transfers over the Conastone–Peach Bottom 500 kV line — the path that carries power down into the Baltimore area — plus constraints on its western ties with MISO, which had issued its own capacity advisory and gone to conservative operations.

Forecast demand was around 111,500 MW or higher on the 13th, rising to roughly 112,447 MW. For a system that serves far more on summer peaks, that is ordinary load. The squeeze came from the supply side: autumn outage season, when plants book maintenance precisely because demand is meant to be low, colliding with unusually warm weather.

2. Backup Generation Is Now Compulsory, and Unpaid

The order lets PJM direct backup generation at large loads — “whether auxiliary, standby, directly-connected, battery storage, or other” — to run as a last resort before or during an Energy Emergency Alert Level 3, the stage at which firm customers start getting cut off. DOE’s own text says it understands this to cover data centres, “including, but not limited to, hyperscaler facilities,” and other large industrial and commercial sites.

Two clauses change what that means in practice.

Paragraph C: “This Order requires the operation of the backup generation resources described in paragraph B.” Once PJM directs it, running is not optional.

Paragraph K: any backup generation subject to the order “shall not be considered a capacity resource.” So the site runs its generators on command and earns no capacity payment for doing it.

Critical facilities are carved out in paragraph D — defence, hospitals, first responders, air traffic control, 911 centres, water and wastewater, gas pipelines.

PJM says it has not used this authority. But the shape of the bargain is now explicit: a large load that connects to this grid is accepting a standing obligation to self-supply in an emergency, for free. Anyone modelling a data centre’s cost of power in PJM should price that in.

3. The Environmental Relief Is Not Small Print

PJM told DOE the order may cause units to exceed permit limits on sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, wastewater discharge and other pollutants including ammonia, along with limits such as fuel throughput.

The order allows it, bounded by what PJM needs for reliability — and adds something easy to miss: emissions, operating hours and fuel burned under the order “will not be counted toward applicable rolling-average based limitations.” The exceedance is permitted and then excluded from the averages that govern the rest of the year. PJM has to report each unit that uses the allowance to DOE daily.

Costs, meanwhile, are recoverable. Paragraph I directs affected parties to file whatever tariff changes are needed, with rate recovery available under the statute.

Why Maryland Keeps Showing Up in These Filings

None of this is an accident of weather. Maryland imports a large share of its electricity — estimates run from about 40% upward — and generation inside the BGE zone is thin.

The price shows it. In the 2025/2026 capacity auction the BGE zone cleared at $466.35 per MW-day while much of PJM cleared near $270; the next auction hit the system-wide cap at $329.17.

So does the subsidy. Brandon Shores and H.A. Wagner in Anne Arundel County were set to close, but the grid could not spare them until transmission upgrades arrive. FERC approved reliability-must-run contracts in May 2025 running to 31 May 2029: roughly $145 million a year for Brandon Shores and $35 million for Wagner in fixed payments, plus variable costs. The Maryland Office of People’s Counsel estimated the arrangements could cost state customers over $629 million through 2028, with BGE customers carrying about 74%, and has appealed the FERC order.

Maryland is paying to keep two old plants running because the wires that would let it import more are not built — and this month the operator told Washington that the zones served by those plants were its most acute problem.

What to Watch

• Whether the order is renewed past 16 October. It cannot be extended after expiry; PJM has to ask first. A renewal in autumn says structural, not meteorological.
• The first time paragraph B is actually used. Data centres ordered onto their own generators, unpaid, is the moment the AI buildout’s grid bargain becomes concrete.
• The Conastone–Peach Bottom corridor and the Brandon Shores upgrades. The transmission is the only thing that ends both the RMR payments and the import constraint.

There is nothing for a BGE or Pepco customer to do today. But when the next capacity-auction result or rate case lands, read it against this order: in mild October weather, with ordinary demand, the grid needed a federal emergency to get through the week, and the operator put your zone at the top of the list.