It’s happening again. Summer temperatures are soaring in much of the South and Midwest this week, straining the electrical grid. Utility operators reached a conclusion that they, and others, have reached before: To avoid blackouts, they may need to boot data centers off the grid.
The Energy Department has obliged, issuing an order that allows Southwest Power Pool, which operates from Montana to Louisiana, to push data centers to use their own backup generators to reduce demand on the grid.
Since May, the Energy Department has issued this kind of emergency authorization six times for PJM Interconnection, the grid operator that covers much of the mid-Atlantic and part of the Rust Belt, and for Southwest Power Pool. Some of those orders extended previous allowances. Collectively, the utilities operate across 30 states and in areas with the highest concentrations of data centers in the country.