Dominion zone among hardest hit as grid forecast a 700-megawatt reserve shortfall

RICHMOND, Va. - The power grid serving most of Virginia came within a forecast 700 megawatts of its required reserve margin in mid-September, and its operator told federal officials the strain was most severe in the zone served by Dominion Energy and two neighboring utility zones in Maryland and the District of Columbia.

PJM Interconnection, which runs the grid and wholesale market for 13 states and D.C., asked the U.S. Department of Energy on Sept. 16 for an emergency order under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act. Energy Secretary Chris Wright granted it the next day as Order No. 202-26-45, effective Sept. 17 and 18.

What PJM told DOE

In a five-page application signed by Chief Operating Officer Frederick "Stu" Bresler, PJM said it had issued a Maximum Generation/Load Management Alert and declared an Energy Emergency Alert Level 1 for Sept. 17 and 18. It forecast demand "at or around 133,285 MW (or higher)" on Sept. 17 and said it was "forecasted to be approximately 700 MW below its reserve margin."

PJM listed several causes: elevated demand, "a high generation outage rate due to planned outages during the autumn outage season," numerous planned transmission outages and "significant firm export obligations." Generation outages were "anticipated to reach around 33,191 MW" across the system, PJM said.

The application then pointed to geography. "North-to-south transfers are being limited by loading on the Conastone-Peach Bottom 5012 500 kV facility," PJM wrote, and the resulting issues "are being experienced most acutely in BGE, PEPCO, and Dominion zones."

PJM said it had already experienced transmission overloads on the evening of Sept. 15, "when system conditions were comparatively more mild," requiring Transmission Loading Relief.

The day of the emergency

On the morning of Sept. 17, PJM sent DOE a supplemental letter. "This morning, a critical generation facility that supports the affected Zones identified in PJM's September 16 application unexpectedly went offline," it said, adding that it was unclear whether the plant would return by that evening's peak. PJM did not name the facility.

In an operations update that day, PJM said load was expected to peak at about 132,000 megawatts and that about 36,000 megawatts of outages remained after it had recalled or canceled what it could. It said hotter weather to the south and west was increasing the need for exports. PJM called pre-emergency demand response in all zones except ComEd and Mid-Atlantic, and additional emergency demand response for the BGE, Pepco and Dominion zones. A PJM demand response summary shows those calls were deployed between 2:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. and released at 10 p.m.

What DOE allowed

The order let PJM run listed power plants beyond their environmental permit limits and direct backup generators at large power users to run as a last resort before rolling blackouts. In the Dominion zone, the list included combustion turbines in Louisa, Fauquier and Hanover counties and emergency diesel units in Ashburn and Gainesville. It also included Mount Storm units 1 and 3 in West Virginia, listed under PJM's "VP" prefix.

PJM's compliance report for Sept. 17 shows six Ashburn diesel units ran 8 to 10 hours under the order and Mount Storm units 3 and 1 ran 12 hours and 1 hour. None of the Virginia combustion turbines appear on that report, which lists only units operating in reliance on the order's allowances.

Context for Virginia

The Dominion zone covers most of Virginia, including the Northern Virginia data center corridor. PJM's application does not attribute the September shortfall to any single source of demand. It describes a combination of heat, scheduled maintenance, transmission limits and exports.

The order says affected parties may seek rate recovery under the Federal Power Act through filings at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. No cost estimate appears in the filings. The Virginia State Corporation Commission's three commissioners were copied on the order.

Dominion's political giving

Dominion is among the largest political donors in Richmond, and Virginia does not cap corporate contributions. Records compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP) show Dominion's 20 largest Democratic recipients in the 2025-26 cycle took at least $8.42 million. That list includes Shannon Taylor's attorney general campaign ($775,000), Del. Charniele Herring ($625,000), Speaker Don Scott ($600,409), Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell ($600,000) and Sen. Mamie Locke ($600,000). In 2023-24, VPAP shows the top 20 Democratic recipients took at least $7.15 million. Dominion's top 20 Republican recipients took about $5.58 million in 2025-26 and $5.06 million in 2023-24, led by Attorney General Jason Miyares at $1.42 million, according to VPAP. Virginia Scope, using VPAP data, reports Dominion has given nearly $18 million to Democrats and more than $15 million to Republicans since 2018. At the federal level, Dominion Energy PAC gave $117,800 to Democratic candidates in 2023-24 and $162,500 to Democratic PACs and party committees, according to OpenSecrets. These figures come from VPAP and OpenSecrets compilations and have not been independently re-verified against state filings.

Documents

The order, PJM's application, its supplemental letter and Exhibit A are posted on the Department of Energy's 202(c) page for Order No. 202-26-45 at energy.gov. PJM's daily compliance report for Sept. 17 is posted at pjm.com.