Thirteen emergency orders. No permanent rule.

FERC says you can't curtail data centers permanently. DOE keeps doing it temporarily. That's the whole grid plan.  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Thursday wrapped, the emergency order is still in force, and a number from PJM's own files stopped me cold. Evening. The Grid Is Running on Emergency Powers. That's the Plan. DOE has signed at least thirteen emergency orders for PJM this year. January. May. June. July. September. October. Six months out of ten. This morning I wrote about Monday's order. DOE 202-26-50. The Energy Secretary signed it so PJM could recall plants from fall maintenance and push data centers onto backup generators. One emergency order makes sense. Weather happens. But thirteen? On October 8, PJM's staff presented the full list to its Operating Committee. The slide deck runs eight pages. Every page has more order numbers. 202-26-2. 202-26-6. 202-26-23. 202-26-24. 202-26-32. 202-26-33. 202-26-35. 202-26-40. 202-26-41. 202-26-45. And now 202-26-50. Each one signed by the Secretary of Energy. Each one authorizing PJM to do things the normal rules don't allow. The pattern is the same every time. Heat arrives. Demand spikes. Plants are down. PJM calls DOE. DOE signs a paper. Data centers go to backup generators. The paper expires. Gibson Dunn called this "a meaningful trend." I'd call it something blunter. It's the operating model. 13+ emergency orders in 10 months DOE Section 202(c) orders issued to PJM in 2026, authorizing data center backup power activation — DOE CESER, 2026 A grid that needs the Secretary of Energy to sign a new paper every few weeks is not a grid with a plan. It is a grid with a workaround.       Jeff Brown: "If I Could Only Buy One AI Stock, This Would Be It" Its patented tech can produce intelligence up to 1,000 times FASTER than regular AI… And it's the same size Nvidia was back in 2016, before it exploded high enough to turn $5,000 into an entire retirement nest egg of $1.89 million. Click here because this could be the only stock you need to retire.       If DOE can order data centers onto backup power in an emergency, why can't PJM make it a permanent rule? Because FERC said no. On October 9, three days before the latest emergency order, FERC rejected the core of PJM's plan to make data center curtailment a standard grid procedure. The plan would have required new loads above 50 MW to bring their own capacity or face curtailment before other customers. FERC kept only two pieces: a definition (50 MW) and a registry. It threw out the rest. The reason was jurisdiction. FERC said curtailment priority is a state matter, not a federal one. Commissioner David Rosner put it directly: "In a grid emergency, non-critical data centers should be shut off before ordinary customers." But he said states should decide the order. "If directives like the Order become more common, data center industry participants may place greater focus on curtailment risk and the use of backup generation when negotiating contracts." — Gibson Dunn, May 2026 So the situation is this. FERC won't let PJM curtail data centers permanently. DOE keeps curtailing them temporarily. Thirteen times and counting. No state has written its own curtailment rules yet. And winter is ten weeks away. The precedent: Before 2026, DOE had never used Section 202(c) to direct data center backup power. It has now done it at least thirteen times. Each order required a personal signature from the Energy Secretary. The gap: PJM expects 30 GW of new data center load by 2030. No permanent rule governs how that load behaves when the grid gets tight. Every incident is handled ad hoc. The risk: An emergency order is not a market signal. Generators don't build capacity around one-off papers. The backup power DOE keeps borrowing belongs to companies that didn't sign up to be grid assets. I've covered every angle of this buildout. Turbines. Transformers. Moratoriums. Mergers. But tonight's story is the simplest and the scariest. The largest grid in America has no permanent framework for the load that's driving it hardest. Just a stack of papers with expiration dates. ⚡ Charged Up Three reads that trace how the grid ended up here. DOE Is Quietly Making Data Center Backup Power a Grid Resource → The Energy Mag. The clearest account of the July emergency order: what DOE authorized, why PJM asked, and how backup generators became the grid's last line. PJM's Curtailment Plan, Explained Before FERC Killed It → mGrid. The full docket walkthrough: what PJM filed, what Bowring said about $29.4 billion in data center costs, and why FERC rejected the core. If a Data Center Doesn't Bring Its Own Power, It Should Be Curtailed First → Center for Progressive Reform. The policy argument that FERC sidestepped. Why the group says the current approach fails both grid reliability and ratepayers. Thirteen orders. No permanent rule. That's not a grid with a framework. That's a grid with a fax machine. Winter is ten weeks out. The stack of papers is all there is. — Theodore The Capital Current ⚡ Every financial story has a power line running through it.   Tap to add your vote Should data centers be curtailed before households in a grid emergency? ⚡ Yes. Homes come first.💻 Only if they didn't bring their own power.⚖ No. The market should set the price, not the order. FK RA TS MW +4k 4,526 readers voting tonight · 178 in the last hour Update your email preferences or unsubscribe here © 2026 The Capital Current by Media Miami LLC 1712 Pioneer Avenue Suite 500 Cheyenne, WY 82001, United States