SUMMARYSevere heat and weather left 842,000 American households without power on Saturday as outages spread across the Northeast and Midwest. Philadelphia canceled its Salute to Independence Semiquincentennial Parade, Washington, D.C. canceled its Independence Day Parade, and Amtrak scrapped some trains because of the dangerous temperatures. PJM, which serves 67 million people, was under a federal alert to cut electricity use amid generator outages, transmission overloads, and surging air conditioning demand, while wholesale power prices in northern Virginia spiked above $2,000 per megawatt hour.
As America began celebrating its 250th birthday Saturday, 842,000 homes reported power outages, notes ABC News. Figures from tracking site PowerOutage showed states in America's Northeast and Midwest were impacted by severe weather and extreme heat.
That number, which will fluctuate throughout the day as crews work to restore power, is for households, meaning that the number of people impacted by these outages is likely to be much larger... Millions of Americans, however, will be contending with a heatwave that is blanketing much of the country, including in Philadelphia where the Salute to Independence Semiquincentennial Parade that had been set for Friday was canceled due to the dangerous heat wave, according to Philadelphia ABC station WPVI. Elsewhere, America's Independence Day Parade, which was scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on July 4 in downtown Washington, D.C. was canceled by organizers late Friday evening due to the extreme heat in the District of Columbia... Amtrak announced it will be canceling a number of trains due to heat-related conditions.
The outages seemed to last throughout the day, with 790,103 household outages still in effect by 4:30 p.m. EST. Ironically, the power outages hit several American states that were among the country's original 13 freedom-declaring colonies, including New Jersey (143,072 outages), Pennsylvania (40,944 outages), and Virginia (27,392 outages).
CNBC adds that America's largest power grid operator said Friday "it was under a federal alert to cut electricity consumption across its territory as it battled generator outages, massive overloading on its transmission lines and a surge in air conditioning use from prolonged sweltering heat."
PJM said it told utilities to reduce electricity to customers who are under contract to reduce consumption during emergencies. PJM serves 67 million people in the Mid-Atlantic, South and Washington, D.C., area. Spot wholesale electricity prices in northern Virginia, home to the largest collection of data centers in the world, have surged beyond $2,000 per megawatt hour this week. That compares to about $40 per MWh when PJM is not in distress.