Дата-центры ИИ мгновенно сбросили 3 ГВт и едва не обрушили энергосеть PJM

In July 2026, more than 3 gigawatts of data centers in Northern Virginia disconnected from the PJM Interconnection grid almost simultaneously — 3.1 GW of load vanished from the system in 30 seconds. That's twice the size of a similar disruption in 2024 and one of the largest incidents of its kind in the operator's territory.

What happened in Virginia

Data centers near Washington, hit by a grid disturbance, switched en masse to backup power and simultaneously stopped drawing current from PJM. The trigger was a downed transmission line: a voltage spike caused data center protection systems to disconnect from the grid at the same time.

*Location — Northern Virginia, PJM Interconnection's operating territory (67 million customers from New Jersey to Illinois)

*More than 3 GW of data centers disconnected nearly in sync

*3.1 GW of load vanished in about 30 seconds

*Peak generation surplus — 3.49 GW

*Grid stabilization took 11 minutes

Why this threatens the power grid

A sudden load drop is dangerous because power plants keep generating current for demand that has already disappeared — creating a surplus that risks frequency swings and cascading outages. According to PJM, at the moment of the disruption data centers accounted for about 3% of total grid demand, and the surplus reached 3.49 GW; returning to normal took 11 minutes.

The scale of the problem is growing along with AI. Data centers accounted for roughly 6% of PJM's load in 2024, and by 2040 their share is projected by the operator to rise to 24%. The 2026 incident turned out to be twice as powerful as a similar case in 2024, when 60 data centers totaling 1.5 GW disconnected from the grid at once.

"It's a canary in the coal mine," said

Ricardo de Azevedo, CTO of ON.Energy; according to him, such events are "happening more and more often."

How they propose to solve the problem

Engineers propose making data centers "ride through" grid disturbances instead of dropping load all at once. ON.Energy is installing uninterruptible power supply systems at four data center campuses totaling 3 GW — these smooth out disturbances without instantly cutting off load. In Texas, grid operator ERCOT already requires large consumers to "ride through" brief disturbances without disconnecting.

The problem is that current protection protocols instruct data centers to disconnect at the very first voltage deviation. As long as rules like Texas's aren't universal, every major campus remains a potential gigawatt-scale switch for the entire grid — and the more that gets built for AI, the higher the price of a single synchronized dump.

"We need to figure out how to make these loads disconnect and reconnect sequentially, not all at once," said

Ali Zain Banatwala, senior market design specialist at the Independent Electricity System Operator.

What this means

The growth of AI runs up against not just chips, but the physics of power grids: gigawatt-scale data centers behave like one giant switch, and without new rules, a synchronized load drop can destabilize a grid serving 67 million customers.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened with the data centers in Northern Virginia?

In July 2026, more than 3 GW of data centers near Washington disconnected from the PJM grid almost simultaneously, dropping 3.1 GW of load in 30 seconds; stabilization took 11 minutes.

Why do data centers disconnect from the grid en masse?

During a voltage spike — for example, from a downed transmission line — data centers' protection systems switch them to backup power. When dozens of facilities do this at once, the grid loses gigawatts of demand within seconds.

How do they want to solve the problem?

Data centers are being urged to "ride through" brief disruptions instead of disconnecting. ON.Energy is installing 3 GW of UPS systems across four campuses, and Texas's ERCOT already requires large loads to operate in ride-through mode.