How tight is New York’s electricity supply lately?

When a heatwave hits, some office buildings first turn the air conditioning up, shut down non-essential equipment, and free up capacity for the power grid.
On July 2, New York State’s electricity demand load rose to 31,097 MW, reaching about 92% of the all-time record. Meanwhile, the PJM power grid serving about 67 million people in the eastern U.S. and the Midwest launched emergency peak shaving, requiring users who signed demand response contracts to reduce electricity use to avoid blackouts.
But bigger demand is still on the way.
Many AI data centers in the U.S. are still under construction or waiting to connect to the grid. The power demand of a single large project is already starting to be measured in gigawatts—equivalent to a small city. Manufacturing reshoring, electric vehicles, and building electrification are also pushing more load onto the same grid.
Right now, it’s just everyone turning up the air conditioning—so the grid has to lower voltage, reroute power, and spend money to get customers to use less.
By the time all gigawatt-scale data centers are fully powered, AI may not even have had the chance to start taking jobs yet—it may first end up competing with office workers for air conditioning.
At this queueing pace, before AI fully replaces people at work, offices may have to start helping AI by saving power.