That warning extends to AES Ohio, the Dayton area’s electric company, and Duke Energy Ohio, whose service area includes most of Butler County and much of Warren County.
PJM is expecting peak loads, or high demand for electricity, from today through next Friday.
The network also issued a “conservative operations declaration” for Saturday through Tuesday for advance unit commitments.
The call for “conservative operations” may include recalling or cancelling non-critical maintenance outages, reductions in transfers into the PJM regional transmission organization that oversees the movement of wholesale electricity and the management of a high-voltage transmission grid.
The call may also include “additional requests placed upon PJM member transmission owners and generation owners,” PJM said.
A message seeking comment was left with a spokesperson for PJM Friday.
Mary Ann Kabel, a spokeswoman for AES Ohio, said the utility is working closely with PJM.
Asked if planned scheduled blackouts may be possible, Kabel said: “That is many steps from where we are now.”
AES Ohio has not had a “call for (power) conservation” from PJM since late 2022, she said.
“We go through all kinds of test scenarios throughout the year to make sure we’re ready,” she said.
It shouldn’t come to blackouts, said Daniel Lockwood, a spokesman for PJM.
“We’ll be constantly monitoring generation and transmission system performance during the storm and the cold weather,” Lockwood said in an email. “Should conditions change, we will of course provide updates.”
He added: “There is always some degree of risk in frigid temperatures but the industry has made many improvements since Winter Storm Elliott in 2022.”
Asked if AES Ohio is ready for coming weather, Kabel said, “Yes.” The expected precipitation across most of the Dayton area and Southwestern Ohio is snow, not ice, she emphasized.
Ice can accumulate on utility wires. A quarter-inch or more ice can “pull the wire,” possibly damaging or breaking equipment, Kabel said.
A group representing Ohio manufacturers is questioning PJM’s declaration.
“Manufacturers say extreme weather is not an exception but the moment the power system is designed to handle,” the Ohio Manufacturers Association said Friday. “High electric bills are routinely justified as the cost of reliability, yet failures during peak conditions continue to expose gaps between what customers are told they are paying for and what the system delivers.”
“Cold weather is not a surprise. Winter happens every year,” Ryan Augsburger, president of the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association, said in a statement. “If reliability is the justification for higher costs, that promise must hold when conditions are toughest. Anything less is a failure of performance and accountability.”
PJM oversees the largest American power grid, serving nearly 70 million people in 13 states and Washington, D.C.
In the Dayton area, a major winter storm is expected to bring significant snowfall and bitterly cold temperatures to the region this weekend.
A winter storm warning will be in effect from 10 a.m. Saturday until noon Monday for the Miami Valley.
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