Grid operators rarely advertise how often they ask customers to cut back, but PJM Interconnection put a number on it in its winter outlook of Nov. 5: demand response was activated 15 times across 2025 and 2026. In the eight years before that run, the same tool was called on just 8 times. The jump marks how much more often the 13-state grid has been testing its backstops.
Save more, waste less: The Cool Down’s newsletter sends smart, simple changes that help you and the planet in your everyday life.
We may earn a commission if you sign up.
Demand response is the arrangement in which large customers and aggregators agree to reduce electricity use when PJM calls, in return for payment. It sits near the front of the operator’s emergency toolkit, well ahead of any rotating outage. PJM groups the calls into tiers, with pre-emergency actions coming before emergency ones, and its planning for extreme cold counts on both tiers being available.
15 times versus 8: reading the comparison
The outlook counts activations as 15 times in 2025-26, versus 8 times in the eight years before. The two windows are uneven, two years set against eight, so the per-year pace is the sharper comparison: about 7.5 activations a year recently, against roughly one a year earlier, more than seven times the earlier rate. The release text read here lists no megawatt volumes for those calls. The release does not break the 15 down by month, zone or program type, so the split between pre-emergency and emergency calls is not public in that document. It also says nothing about participation levels or payments, which leaves the cost of the busier schedule outside the record read here.
PJM operations chief David Souder framed the stakes in terms of margin, warning of “less room for error.” Michael Bryson, the senior vice president of operations, described the aim as coordinating operations with generation and transmission owners and managing the system to perform at a high level when consumers need energy most.
The January 25 call for BGE, Dominion and Pepco
One of those activations is documented in PJM’s cold-weather updates. On Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026, PJM issued a Pre-Emergency Demand Response call covering the BGE, Dominion and Pepco zones for the afternoon and evening, citing local transmission constraints and a wish to preserve generator run-time for later in the week. A Maximum Generation Alert and Load Management Alert also ran through 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 27, warning that non-emergency and emergency demand response might follow.
Demand that Tuesday morning ran near 137,000 megawatts, below forecast because of warmer temperatures and school and government closures, with a 148,000-megawatt peak projected for Jan. 30. The American Public Power Association’s summary of the outlook adds that hourly peaks stayed above 130,000 megawatts for eight straight days, Jan. 26 to Feb. 2.
The supply picture frames how often those calls could recur. PJM counts 182,426 megawatts of operational capacity for the season against a forecast peak of about 147,500 megawatts plus roughly 3,200 megawatts of exports, which leaves about 31,700 megawatts of room on paper. In the extreme-cold case of 152,200 megawatts that room shrinks to about 30,200 megawatts, and the outlook points to roughly 46,000 megawatts of generator outages during Winter Storm Elliott as the kind of loss that could erase it.
To limit that risk, the ReliabilityFirst regional entity expects 30 to 35 generator site visits this year, up from fewer than 10 before 2023, and the cold-weather requirements sit in PJM’s Manual 14D, Attachment N. A similar program from SERC begins this year for the rest of the footprint.
Where demand response sits before backup generators
The order of operations matters. According to Utility Dive’s report on the Department of Energy backup-generation authority, generators at data centers and other large loads would be called only after an Energy Emergency Alert 2 and after every generating resource and emergency demand response had been tapped. PJM told the outlet it does not expect to need the procedure. Demand response therefore carries the weight in the middle of the sequence, which makes its busier calendar relevant to anyone watching the reserve margin. The same report says the Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, announced the plan on Jan. 22, the order took effect on Jan. 26, and DOE later extended PJM’s authorization to midnight on Feb. 2.
That margin is the other half of the story. PJM’s February 2026 report on the 2027/2028 auction found procurement of 145,777.1 megawatts, including fixed-resource commitments, which was 6,517 megawatts below the reliability requirement and left a 14.4% installed reserve margin against a 20% target. The report listed surging data center load, about 54 gigawatts of retirements from 2011 to 2023, and roughly 24 gigawatts of approved projects terminated since 2020 among the causes.
For winter 2026-27, PJM expects a peak near 147,500 megawatts against 182,426 megawatts of operational capacity, and says reliability holds up to a 152,200-megawatt stress case by leaning on Pre-Emergency and Emergency Demand Response. How many more activations this winter adds will be on the record by the next outlook.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
Save more, waste less: Subscribe to The Cool Down →
We may earn a commission if you sign up.
More from Morning Overview
- The FBI told the rest of ShinyHunters to surrender after a 24-year-old was arrested
- Two passengers died at an Ohio toll plaza, and the NTSB now wants the cash lanes shut
- Long use of a common prostate pill is tied to a higher chance of glaucoma
- Ford is recalling 223,472 F-150 pickups because the fuel tank can leak or detach
