Jul 17, 2026 · 26 min · 11 segments
Something happened on July 2nd that really turned conventional wisdom about renewables on its head. Then, on July 8th, something that I think is even more exciting happened. They were both so…
Jamie DeMarcoHost
Specifically, between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. that day, the grid hit an all-time high energy demand.
I would have assumed that with all the data centers coming online, with Northern Virginia being the data center center of the world, there's no higher concentration of data center usage anywhere.
Given all of that, I would have assumed that since 2006, there had been an increase in the amount of electricity we use.
This is a bit of a tangent, but that happened because of state policies like the Empower program in Maryland, these energy efficiency programs.
These energy efficiency gains, just, you know, the cheapest form of electricity, the easiest form of electricity, the electricity you never use.
have offset all of the economic growth, all of the population growth, all of the data centers that have come onto our grid since 2006.
The point is that on that day, record electricity demand on the grid, with a caveat.
things got so bad that pjm moved beyond economic dispatch and into emergency dispatch for generators that's technical terms but the thing to make clear is that they did not have enough electricity they were running out they were pulling everything they had to pull they had no other options and i want to make clear i've spent a lot of time for those who listen to me criticizing pjm but the people who actually operate the grid the people sitting at the command center making sure the lights stay on they are absolute heroes they must have had quite a weekend that weekend and grateful for their service but the control operators were doing everything they could to keep the lights on they were pulling ever every lever they had the first thing to emphasize here is that coal and gas caused this grid stable destabilization event scientists can say definitively that a heat wave of that magnitude would have been impossible before human caused climate change Burning coal and oil and gas caused climate change.
Specifically, between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. that day, the grid hit an all-time high energy demand.
I would have assumed that with all the data centers coming online, with Northern Virginia being the data center center of the world, there's no higher concentration of data center usage anywhere.
Given all of that, I would have assumed that since 2006, there had been an increase in the amount of electricity we use.
This is a bit of a tangent, but that happened because of state policies like the Empower program in Maryland, these energy efficiency programs.
These energy efficiency gains, just, you know, the cheapest form of electricity, the easiest form of electricity, the electricity you never use.
have offset all of the economic growth, all of the population growth, all of the data centers that have come onto our grid since 2006.
The point is that on that day, record electricity demand on the grid, with a caveat.
things got so bad that pjm moved beyond economic dispatch and into emergency dispatch for generators that's technical terms but the thing to make clear is that they did not have enough electricity they were running out they were pulling everything they had to pull they had no other options and i want to make clear i've spent a lot of time for those who listen to me criticizing pjm but the people who actually operate the grid the people sitting at the command center making sure the lights stay on they are absolute heroes they must have had quite a weekend that weekend and grateful for their service but the control operators were doing everything they could to keep the lights on they were pulling ever every lever they had the first thing to emphasize here is that coal and gas caused this grid stable destabilization event scientists can say definitively that a heat wave of that magnitude would have been impossible before human caused climate change Burning coal and oil and gas caused climate change.
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