Photographer: Justin Merriman/Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) — US power grids are expected to grapple with unprecedented seasonal demand and the threat of blackouts after a damaging winter storm coated parts of the South and Mid-Atlantic in ice — leaving brutal cold in its wake.
New York may see a few more snowflakes on Monday as the biggest winter storm in years pushes out of the US. But bone-chilling wind chills probably will persist all week, testing seasonal electricity-demand records from New England to Texas.
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The PJM Interconnection grid that stretches from Chicago to Washington DC warned late Sunday that it’s bracing for seven straight days of extreme demand, representing “a winter streak that PJM has never experienced.”
A massive winter storm reached the US Atlantic Coast on Sunday, bringing heavy snow and ice, straining power grids and grounding thousands of flights at levels not seen since the pandemic.Source: Bloomberg
The threat of a supply squeeze is dire enough that PJM is taking the unusual step of paying some major customers such as manufacturers to curb power use to help prevent the need for rolling, residential blackouts. The grid covering Texas, known as Ercot, is taking similar measures.
Monday will be a day of tests of infrastructure and patience across most of the nation’s major population centers. Brutal cold, a heavy layer of snow and destructive ice accumulations will continue to snarl highway, rail and air travel, including public transit systems in New York, New Jersey and farther afield. Airlines will have a major task in unraveling the chaos from thousands of flight cancellations since the storm emerged late last week.
The US natural gas benchmark jumped as much as 19% to more than $6 per million British thermal units, a level not seen since 2022 when trading opened late Sunday.
Dallas is under an extreme cold warning until Tuesday with wind chills expected to plunge as low as -10F (-23C). Overnight lows in Washington DC will struggle to reach 10F for most of the week. The upper Midwest, meanwhile, is shivering, with wind chills around -40F.
Electricity prices have soared and grid operators have been obtaining federal waivers from some pollution limits so they can employ dirtier power-plant fuels such as diesel and coal.
Meanwhile, some utilities are scrambling to recover from widespread outages. More than 950,000 homes and businesses were without power as of 7:05 p.m. in New York.
A flight information board at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) in Arlington, Virginia, on Jan. 25.Source: Bloomberg
The majority of those outages were in Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, a region lashed by a heavy dousing of freezing rain. Some roads were left skating-rink slick by ice more than 0.75 inches (1.9 centimeters) thick that also encased tree branches and power lines.
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The prolonged freeze in coming days will increase the risk of power outages as the weight of the ice snaps more limbs on lines.
By Sunday afternoon, more than 90% of customers were without power in the Tennessee county that includes Nashville. In Mississippi, ice-driven outages knocked some weather stations offline, said Rob Carolan of Hometown Forecast Services Inc., leaving government forecasters and first responders in the dark about conditions.
President Donald Trump approved emergency aid for a dozen states hit by the storm, freeing up federal equipment and offering reimbursement for services such as sheltering and evacuations.
The storm forced thousands of flight cancellations, on a scale not seen since the pandemic. More than 2,400 weekday flights across the US had already been called off as of Sunday evening, according to statistics from FlightAware.
New York City officials announced that approximately 500,000 public-school students would have remote instruction on Monday.
Day-ahead power prices for Monday in the PJM grid territory are the highest since a disastrous polar vortex in early 2014. In the grids covering New York City and parts of New England, on-peak average prices for Monday also touched all-time highs.
PJM on-peak power for Monday rose to an average of $638.73 a megawatt-hour, according to grid data compiled by MCG Energy Solutions LLC. In The Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ North hub that includes Dallas, power for Monday’s peak-demand hours climbed 1,200% from the Sunday average to $516.25 a megawatt-hour, the most since August 2023.
On Sunday, the Energy Department said it issued an emergency order that authorized PJM to run power plants at maximum capability, including those fueled by coal and oil, regardless of limits established under environmental rules or state law.
Meanwhile, the Texas grid is expected to face tight conditions through Monday. The Energy Department ordered the state’s grid operator to use backup diesel generators at data centers in periods of extreme stress.
Photographer: Mark Felix/Bloomberg
In the South, some of the heaviest ice covered northern Mississippi, including the college town of Oxford, which is likely to see up to an inch accumulate through Monday.
The area is buried in “an absolute mess of downed trees and power lines due to the added weight of ice,” forecasters for the National Weather Service wrote in an update Sunday afternoon, noting widespread power outages. “Roads in these areas are extremely dangerous and at times, impassable.”
Conditions aren’t likely to improve any time soon: Much of the mid-South and Texas is on track for near-freezing temperatures heading into the work week, which may prevent snow and ice from quickly melting off.
–With assistance from Brian Eckhouse, Brian K. Sullivan, Mary Hui, Sri Taylor, Julian Hast, Julie Fine and Rachel Lavin.
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