PJM and its members are preparing for extremely cold temperatures over the next several days, and PJM has issued cold weather alerts from Dec. 30 to Jan. 2, 2018. Currently sufficient power supplies and reserves are available, and PJM does not expect issues.
- A cold weather alert is in effect Saturday, Dec. 30, for the Dayton Power & Light, Commonwealth Edison, Duke Energy Ohio and Duke Energy Kentucky transmission zones.
- A cold weather alert is in effect Sunday, Dec. 31, for the western region of PJM, which includes all or parts of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
- A cold weather alert is in effect Monday, Jan. 1, through Tuesday, Jan. 2, for all of PJM.
A cold weather alert prepares personnel and facilities for expected extreme cold weather conditions, when actual temperatures fall near or below 10 degrees Fahrenheit.
PJM communicates with generator owners and tells them to be prepared to call in additional staff to get all generating units running for the morning load pickup. They must take extra care to maintain the equipment so that it doesn’t freeze in the cold weather. During a cold weather alert, PJM also cancels or postpones planned maintenance outages to ensure the availability of resources.
For the weekend, PJM expects a peak load of approximately 116,000 megawatts on Saturday, Dec. 30, and 118,000 MW on Sunday, Dec. 31.
On Monday, Jan. 1, PJM expects an evening peak of approximately 124,000 MW. On Tuesday, Jan. 2, PJM expects a morning peak of 134,500 MW and an evening peak of 132,000 PJM.
PJM’s highest winter peak load was 143,129 MW, which occurred Feb. 20, 2015.
Learn more about how PJM prepares for winter conditions on the PJM Learning Center.
