Incident Response Lessons From a 3 GW Grid Drop
When a transmission line faulted in Ashburn, Virginia on July 22, 2026, more than 3 GW of data center load vanished from the PJM grid in seconds. That is roughly three percent of total grid demand at the moment it happened, and the grid took about ten minutes to stabilize instead of the milliseconds a routine disturbance normally requires. For anyone who owns a pager, this is more than an energy story.