PJM Interconnection warns that central Ohio may face an energy shortfall due to surging demand and summer heat.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The country’s largest electric grid operator is issuing a warning that could directly impact central Ohio, as extreme summer heat and surging electricity demand from massive new developments may push the region’s energy supply to a tipping point.

Officials with PJM Interconnection, which manages the flow of electricity across 13 states, including Ohio, say rising demand from large-scale projects like the Intel chip plant, Google data center and Anduril facility — combined with intensifying summer heat—are straining the grid.

“At the current pace, we are projecting a shortfall of energy,” said David Souder, executive director of PJM operations.

The warning comes as PJM faces a growing challenge: aging power plants are retiring faster than new energy sources can come online. Souder emphasized the need to keep existing generators running longer to avoid outages.

“We really need to keep the generation that is scheduled to retire online until we can basically serve the load reliably,” Souder added.

This summer, grid operators expect electricity demand could reach 154,000 megawatts, enough to power more than hundreds of millions of homes. But in the event of an extreme heat wave, demand could spike to 166,000 megawatts. At that level, PJM says the system could start experiencing reserve shortfalls.

“That’s when we look at potentially becoming short our reserves and the need to load what we call demand response,” Souder said. “Demand response is a product where we will pay in-use customers, whether they be residential or commercial customers, to actually reduce their load and demand to maintain reliable systems.”

Relief may be coming, but not soon enough.

A new natural gas-fired power plant approved for construction in New Albany is expected to help offset central Ohio’s growing energy needs. However, the facility isn’t built yet. It’s unknown when it will be online to help offset PJM’s projected energy shortfall two years from now.

Despite the challenges, Souder said Ohio is in relatively good shape for this summer. PJM has recently secured approval for an additional 47,000 megawatts of capacity across the system, but he stressed that getting that new infrastructure built and operational remains the biggest hurdle.

“We continue to monitor the increasing demand,” Souder said.