Power markets in the largest U.S. grid experienced a sudden and steep price spike on Sunday as a winter storm tightened its grip on broad swaths of the country and electricity demand in Virginia outpaced expectations.
Real-time wholesale prices in Dominion Energy’s Virginia service area climbed to more than $1,800 per megawatt-hour early Sunday, a dramatic rise from roughly $200 per megawatt-hour on Saturday morning. Virginia hosts the planet’s biggest cluster of energy-intensive data centers, facilities that have contributed materially to rising electricity consumption and elevated prices in parts of the United States.
According to data from PJM Interconnection - the regional grid operator covering roughly 67 million people - the uptick in demand began late Saturday night as Winter Storm Fern moved across parts of the country. PJM said the surge is expected to lift system demand to a potential all-time winter record on Tuesday, in part because of electricity needs tied to data center operations.
PJM’s forecast calls for demand of 147.2 gigawatts, which would surpass the current winter peak of 143.7 GW recorded in January 2025. Dominion Energy has said that prolonged frigid temperatures and heavy snowfall this week could amount to one of the largest winter events to affect the utility’s operations.
Dominion was not immediately available for comment on the weekend’s price moves. Within the utility’s portion of the PJM territory, demand reached roughly 23 gigawatts per hour at 10 a.m. EDT on Sunday - about 5% higher than PJM’s earlier forecast for that zone.
Spot wholesale electricity prices across multiple U.S. regions remained elevated through the weekend as grid operators struggled to match surging consumer and business demand. When actual load exceeds utility forecasts, suppliers and utilities can be compelled to purchase electricity at higher spot prices to ensure service continuity for homes and companies.
Regional transmission organizations and independent system operators feed power into local distribution networks that deliver electricity to end users. Those distribution systems showed signs of strain amid the storm: outage tracker PowerOutage.us reported nearly 900,000 customers without power on Sunday.
Outages were concentrated in several states, with more than 300,000 customers affected in Tennessee and more than 100,000 each in Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana. Additional states reporting disruptions included Kentucky, Georgia, Virginia and Alabama.
Takeaway: A combination of extreme cold and elevated data center electricity consumption pushed wholesale prices to acute highs in parts of the PJM grid, while grid operators warned of an approaching winter demand milestone and utilities grappled with widespread outages.