Gas Is PJM's Achilles Heel
88 GW of PJM's dispatchable fleet runs on gas, and gas supply is correlated with cold weather demand — when you need it most, it's most likely to fail. The vulnerability surface shows this isn't a cliff edge. It's a slope, and every GW of data center load steepens it.
Model: hourly dispatch with parametric gas curtailment (0–70%) across 9 weather years. 2022 weather includes actual Elliott demand spike.
Christmas Eve, Replayed
Calibrated against FERC/NERC final report (Nov 2023). Actual gas outage rate was 37% (vs. our assumed 32%). Model understates the real risk.
Dominion Zone Breaks First
The Dominion zone (Northern Virginia) has 20 GW of generation serving 70% of DC load, with only 6.6 GW of transfer capacity from the rest of PJM. It fails in 9 out of 9 weather years at 10 GW DC while PJM system-wide shows zero hours unserved.
Named substations BECO, Mars, and Wishing Star carry the bulk of Northern Virginia interconnection. PJM's planned $4.8B HVDC backbone adds 3 GW of transfer capacity by 2032 — but when the zone needs 13 GW of relief at 15 GW DC load, 3 GW isn't enough.
Calibrated against: EIA-860 generator data, NRC nuclear capacities, PJM CETL transfer limits.
The Gas-Electric Cascade
When gas plants trip, remaining units run harder, increasing their failure probability. This feedback loop amplifies outages far beyond the initial shock. The cascade model tracks this S-curve progression, calibrated against the FERC/NERC timeline showing escalation over 36 hours during Elliott.
Planned Buildout Makes It Worse
Coal retirements reduce fuel-secure capacity faster than new generation comes online. The planned ~2028 fleet is less resilient than the current fleet under identical stress conditions.
| Fleet | Firm Capacity | Elliott Hours (0 GW DC) | Elliott Hours (15 GW DC) | Elliott Hours (30 GW DC) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current 2024 | ~160 GW | 164 | 714 | 2,342 |
| Planned ~2028 | ~153 GW | 291 | 1,103 | 3,102 |
| Full Plan ~2032 | ~145 GW | 472 | 1,628 | 3,927 |
The current fleet can't survive another Elliott even with zero data centers. PJM avoided load shedding in Dec 2022 through emergency procedures, conservation appeals, and luck. The ~2032 fleet has 472 hours of unserved energy under Elliott conditions at zero DC load — nearly 3x worse than the current fleet.
Our Assumptions Were Conservative
FERC/NERC confirmed our assumed gas outage rate was conservative: actual Elliott forced outage rates were worse than what we modeled. Gas peaked at 37% (not our assumed 32%), coal at ~16% (close to our 15%). Marcellus shale gas production dropped 23%, Utica dropped 54%. 92% of plant failures gave less than one hour's notice.
The model understates the real risk. Every finding on this page uses outage rates below what actually occurred. The true vulnerability surface is worse than shown.