On 17 February, and again on 23 February US secretary of Energy Chris Wright issued emergency orders ‘to address critical grid reliability issues’ facing the Mid-Atlantic region and PJM regions of the United States’.
In the first of these orders Mr Chris Wright renewed an emergency order which directed the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), in co-ordination with Consumers Energy, to ensure that the J.H. Campbell coal-fired power plant in Michigan ‘shall take all steps necessary to remain available to operate and to employ economic dispatch to minimise costs for the American people’. The Campbell Plant was originally scheduled to shut down on 31 May 2025, 15 years before the end of its scheduled design life.
The second order, on 23 February, directed PJM Interconnection LLC, in co-ordination with Constellation Energy Corp, to ensure Units 3 and 4 of the Eddystone generating station in Pennsylvania ‘remain available for operation, and to employ economic dispatch to minimise costs for the American people’. The units were originally scheduled to shut down on 31 May 2025. The DOE has stated that the emergency conditions that led to the issuance of the original orders still persists.
These kinds of order have a lifetime of 3 months. The DoE’s original order for Eddystone was issued in May 2025 and renewed on 28 August and 26 November the same year. The original order for Campbell was issued on May 23, 2025, with subsequent orders being issued on 20 August 2025 and 18 November 2025.
The reasoning is than the move is justified by grid fragility under the stress of winter needs. The Campbell plant has proved critical to MISO’s operations, operating regularly during periods of high energy demand and low levels of intermittent energy production, while the Eddystone nnits were integral in stabilising the grid during winter Storm Fern. From January 26-29, the units ran for over 124 hours cumulatively, providing critical generation in the midst of the energy emergency.
As outlined in the DOE’s Resource Adequacy Report, power outages could increase by 100 times in 2030 if the US continues to take reliable power offline. Furthermore, NERC’s 2025 Long Term Reliability Assessment warns, “The continuing shift in the resource mix toward weather-dependent resources and less fuel diversity increases risks of supply shortfalls during winter months.
