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Brandon Owens is the founder of AIxEnergy.io, a platform providing data on energy infrastructure and artificial intelligence.
At 7:56 a.m. EDT on July 22, 2026, Ting Labs detected the beginning of a major transmission disturbance in Northern Virginia. PJM Interconnection subsequently reported that more than 3 GW of power demand — about 3% of system demand at the time — went offline as affected data centers transferred rapidly to backup power. Ting’s sensor analysis recorded a frequency rise and voltage effects across the Eastern Interconnection
Importantly, PJM said the disturbance caused no reliability impact, while Dominion Energy said operators stabilized conditions and returned the system to normal within minutes. Still, the event was noteworthy from a reliability perspective — more of a harbinger of things to come than an isolated event, and a warning about the need to act in response to the increasing risks associated with the tsunami of large loads that are being added to power systems across the globe.
The Northern Virginia large load disturbance was not the first. In fact, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas identified eight events between November 2020 and March 2023 in which faults near a large Texas Gulf Coast industrial load produced repeated demand reductions of approximately 400 MW to 700 MW. ERCOT reported system frequencies as high as approximately 60.11 Hz and said later changes to variable-frequency-drive settings and internal controls improved the facility’s ride-through performance.
