Why Should Delaware Care?
The regional electricity grid could experience the highest energy demand it has ever seen in a single week starting Saturday due to the incoming winter storm. PJM officials say they are prepared to meet the demand.
PJM, the company that runs the electricity grid that serves Delaware and its neighbors, says the region will see a record week for energy use starting on Saturday – a period that coincides with heavy forecasted snow and frigid temperatures.
Despite the historic demand, PJM said in a statement that the company will have enough electricity to serve all of its customers.
“This is a formidable arctic cold front coming our way, and it will impact our neighboring systems as much as it affects PJM,” said Mike Bryson, Senior Vice President of Operations. “We will be relying on our generation fleet to perform as well as they did during last year’s record winter peak.”
Starting on Saturday, PJM said it expects households and businesses within the grid – which serves 13 states from Maryland to Ohio – to push peak demand for power to more than 130,000 megawatts of electricity each day for a week.
The company could also see an all-time record peak on Tuesday, with current projections showing a demand of 147,300 megawatts.
The company described it all as a “winter streak that PJM has never experienced.”
“PJM is taking additional precautions with its generation and transmission owners to prepare,” company officials said.
The company further stated that there are 180,800 megawatts of energy capacity available, which should be enough to meet the demand.
As of Friday afternoon, the latest National Weather Service forecast predicts an accumulation of 8 to 12 inches of snow and sleet across most of Delaware.
Delmarva Power, the utility company that serves more than half of the state, said they are prepared for the upcoming storm. In an emailed statement, company spokesperson Matthew Ford said the utility’s electrical system “continues to perform well despite the prolonged cold temperatures.”
“From our end, we have enhanced staffing and resources in place ahead of the storm, including additional field crews and contractors, to respond quickly if any weather-related outages occur,” Ford said.
Delaware Electric Cooperative, another utility in the state, wrote in a Facebook post that the predicted weather conditions “significantly increase the potential for power outages.”
In a separate statement to Spotlight Delaware, the Delaware Electric Cooperative, said its employees have been busy preparing for the storm all week, noting that bucket trucks and warehouses are stocked and that crews are staged across the utility’s service territory “to respond to downed trees and damage to electrical equipment.”
The company also noted that the biggest concern is the potential for “significant icing across western Sussex and all of Kent County.”
“Even a light glaze of ice can weigh down trees, causing them to fall onto power lines,” the company said.