Summer 2025 Brings Warnings of Risk to Electric Reliability

As summer 2025 kicks off, grid operators and federal reliability officials are bracing for record-breaking electricity demand, highlighting persistent vulnerabilities in system stability during extreme weather events.

PJM Interconnection, which manages electricity generation and transmission for over 65 million residents across 13 states, including Pennsylvania, anticipates it will have enough generation capacity to meet typical peak summer demand. PJM expects peak summer demand to hit roughly 154,000 megawatts (MW), up from last year’s 152,000 MW. Though PJM expects over 178,000 MW of capacity to be available, technically enough to meet that demand, it cautions that factors like unplanned outages, congestion on transmission lines, and severe weather could strain operations.

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), responsible for overseeing grid stability across the U.S. and Canada, also issued its 2025 Summer Reliability Assessment recently. NERC flags elevated to high risks of energy shortfalls in several regions, particularly when summer temperatures exceed seasonal norms. Grid operators in the Midwest, New England, and Texas are among those at greater risk, while large portions of the Western Interconnection face especially high risk under drought or wildfire conditions. NERC attributes these threats to a convergence of aggressive demand projections, accelerated retirements of generating assets and infrastructure, and weather-induced volatility in both electricity use and renewable energy output.

Similar reports are also coming from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), which notes that electricity consumption, especially during summer peaks, is on the rise. The growth is driven not only by increased air conditioning usage, but also by systemic changes like the electrification of vehicles and building systems. EIA forecasts energy use to continue growing at a pace of approximately 1.7% annually through 2026.

Rising consumption has also begun to exert upward pressure on prices. According to the EIA, residential electricity rates have trended upward over the past year. Contributing factors include elevated fuel costs, constrained capacity, and infrastructure investments, such as those supporting large-scale AI data centers. In Pennsylvania, the Public Utility Commission (PUC) has advised households to prepare for higher electricity bills this summer and urged residents to make use of energy conservation tools and efficiency programs during high-demand periods.