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Bianca Giacobone contributed reporting to this piece.
When a transmission line faulted in Northern Virginia last week, some three gigawatts of data center load disconnected from the grid and switched to back-up diesel power.
It marked the largest drop-off event from data centers to date, and caused voltage levels across the PJM region to spike. While the grid operator and Dominion Energy said they stabilized the grid within about 10 minutes and avoided any outages, the event underscored the growing risks that data centers pose to grid reliability.
“In the worst case scenario, this can continue to cascade,” Doug Bryan, senior manager of power and energy systems at Carbon Direct, told Latitude Media. “So far we haven’t had any rolling blackouts, so the systems in place are dealing with the problem. But we’re trending toward a situation that is more difficult to deal with, and a response is needed.”
