July 22, 2026 | Source: U.S. Department of Energy, Emergency Order No. 202-26-35 (Federal Power Act Section 202(c))
PJM's Federal Emergency Order Expired Last Night. The Safety Net Is Off.
At 11:59 PM EDT on July 21, DOE Emergency Order No. 202-26-35 expired. As of this morning, no successor order has been posted to DOE's 2026 Section 202(c) docket.
Issued July 14 on PJM's application, the order did two things. It directed PJM to dispatch specified units as needed to maintain reliability. And it authorized PJM — working through its Transmission Owners and Electric Distribution Companies — to call on backup generation resources as a last resort before declaring an Energy Emergency Alert 3, or during one.
It was the eighth 202(c) order DOE has directed at PJM in 2026, carrying the RTO through a heat wave that produced a preliminary all-time peak of 168,158 MW on July 2, per PJM.
What Expiration Actually Changes in the Control Room
When a 202(c) order lapses, the units it covered revert to their normal permit limits and market rules. The behind-the-meter backup fleet that was federally authorized as a pre-EEA 3 tool is off the table until a new order says otherwise.
That doesn't mean the summer exposure is over. Unit-specific orders remain active in PJM — Eddystone Units 3 and 4 under Order 202-26-24 through August 22, and Wagner Unit 4 under Order 202-26-25 through August 19.
For operators, RCs, and compliance teams, the pattern is the real story: eight federal emergency actions in one RTO in seven months. If your EOPs, capacity assumptions, and EEA playbooks still treat 202(c) as a once-a-decade event, they're behind the operating reality. Know before the shift starts which units on your system are covered — and which stopped being covered at midnight.
EPG Solutions Can Help
When federal emergency orders are cycling on and off week to week, the control rooms that fare best are the ones that see system stress building in real time — RTDMS and PGDA situational awareness that shows the grid tightening before the alert goes out, not after. That's the work EPG Solutions lives in. Visit EPG Solutions → epgsolutions.services