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Cloud Data Centers Environmental Impact highlights massive electricity use, carbon emissions, and cooling demands, with coal-heavy grids in China; big tech shifts to renewable energy, green data centers, and cooler climates to boost sustainability.

Key Points

Energy use, emissions, and cooling load of cloud systems, and shifts to renewables to reduce climate impact.

✅ Global data centers use 3-5% of electricity, akin to airlines

✅ Cooling drives energy demand; siting in cool climates saves power

✅ Shift from coal to renewables lowers CO2 and improves PUE

A hidden environmental price makes storing data in the cloud a costly convenience.

Between 3 to 5% of all electricity used globally comes from data centers that house massive computer systems, with computing power forecasts warning consumption could climb, an amount comparable to the airline industry, says Ben Brock Johnson, Here & Now’s tech analyst.

Instead of stashing information locally on our own personal devices, the cloud allows users to free up storage space by sending photos and files to data centers via the internet.

The cloud can also use large data sets to solve problems and host innovative technologies that make cities and homes smarter, but storing information at data centers uses energy — a lot of it.

"Ironically, the phrase 'moving everything to the cloud' is a problem for our actual climate right now," Johnson says.

A new study from Greenpeace and North China Electric Power University reports that in five years, China's data centers alone will consume as much power as the total amount used in Australia in 2018. The industry's electricity consumption is set to increase by 66% over that time.

Buildings storing data produced 99 million metric tons of carbon last year in China, the study finds, with SF6 in electrical equipment compounding warming impacts, which is equivalent to 21 million cars.

The amount of electricity required to run a data center is a global problem, but in China, 73% of these data centers run on coal, even as coal-fired electricity is projected to fall globally this year.

The Chinese government started a pilot program for green data centers in 2015, which Johnson says signals the country is thinking about the environmental consequences of the cloud.

"Beijing’s environmental awareness in the last decade has really come from a visible impact of its reliance on fossil fuels," he says. "The smog of Chinese cities is now legendary and super dangerous."

The country's solar power innovations have allowed the country to surpass the U.S. in cleantech, he says.

Chinese conglomerate Alibaba Group has launched data centers powered by solar and hydroelectric power.

"While I don't know how committed the government is necessarily to making data centers run on clean technology," Johnson says. "I do think it is possible that a larger evolution of the government's feelings on environmental responsibility might impact this newer tech sector."

In the U.S., there has been a big push to make data centers more sustainable amid warnings that the electric grid is not designed for mounting climate impacts.

Canada has made notable progress decarbonizing power, with nationwide electricity gains supporting cleaner data workloads.

Apple now says all of its data centers use clean energy. Microsoft is aiming for 70% renewable energy by 2023, aligning with declining power-sector emissions as producers move away from coal.

Amazon is behind the curve, for once, with about 50%, Johnson says. Around 1,000 employees are planning to walk out on Sept. 20 in protest of the company’s failure to address environmental issues.

"Environmental responsibility fits the brand identities these companies want to project," he says. "And as large tech companies become more competitive with each other, as Apple becomes more of a service company and Google becomes a device company, they want to convince users more and more to think of them as somehow different even if they aren't."

Google and Facebook are talking about building data centers in cooler places like Finland and Sweden instead of hot deserts like Nevada, he says.

In Canada, cleaning up electricity is critical to meeting climate pledges, according to recent analysis.

Computer systems heat up and need to be cooled down by air conditioning units, so putting a data center in a warm climate will require greater cooling efforts and use more energy.

In China, 40% of the electricity used at data centers goes toward cooling equipment, according to the study.

The more data centers consolidate, Johnson says they can rely on fewer servers and focus on larger cooling efforts.

But storing data in the cloud isn't the only way tech users are unknowingly using large amounts of energy: One Google search requires an amount of electricity equivalent to powering a 60-watt light bulb for 17 seconds, magazine Yale Environment 360 reports.

"In some ways, we're making strides even as we are creating a bigger problem," he says. "Which is like, humanity's MO, I guess."

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EU Electrification Strategy 2050 outlines shifting transport, buildings, and industry to clean power, accelerating EV adoption, heat pumps, and direct electrification to meet targets, reduce emissions, and replace fossil fuels with renewables and low-carbon grids.

Key Points

EU plan to cut emissions 95% by 2050 by electrifying transport, buildings and industry with clean power.

✅ 60% of final energy from electricity by 2050

✅ EVs dominate transport; up to 63% electric share

✅ Heat pumps electrify buildings; industry to 50% direct

The European Union has one of the most ambitious carbon emission reduction goals under the global Paris Agreement on climate change – a 95% reduction by 2050.

It seems that everyone has an idea for how to get there. Some are pushing nuclear energy. Others are pushing for a complete phase-out of fossil fuels and a switch to renewables.

Today the European electricity industry came out with their own plan, amid expectations of greater electricity price volatility in Europe in the coming years. A study published today by Eurelectric, the trade body of the European power sector, concludes that the 2050 goal will not be possible without a major shift to electricity in transport, buildings and industry.

The study finds that for the EU to reach its 95% emissions reduction target, electricity needs to cover at least 60 percent of final energy consumption by 2050. This would require a 1.5 percent year-on-year growth of EU electricity use, with evidence that EVs could raise electricity demand significantly in other markets, while at the same time reducing the EU’s overall energy consumption by 1.3 percent per year.

#google#

Transport is one of the areas where electrification can deliver the most benefit, because an electric car causes far less carbon emissions than a conventional vehicle, with e-mobility emerging as a key driver of electricity demand even if that electricity is generated in a fossil fuel power plant.

In the most ambitious scenario presented by the study, up to 63 percent of total final energy consumption in transport will be electric by 2050, and some analyses suggest that mass adoption of electric cars could occur much sooner, further accelerating progress.

Building have big potential as well, according to the study, with 45 to 63 percent of buildings energy consumption could be electric in 2050 by converting to electric heat pumps. Industrial processes could technically be electrified with up to 50 percent direct electrification in 2050, according to the study. The relative competitiveness of electricity against other carbon-neutral fuels will be the critical driver for this shift, but grid carbon intensity differs across markets, such as where fossil fuels still supply a notable share of generation.

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US power grid modernization addresses aging infrastructure, climate resilience, extreme weather, EV demand, and clean energy integration, using AI, transmission upgrades, and resilient substations to improve reliability, reduce outages, and enable rapid recovery.

Key Points

US power grid modernization strengthens infrastructure for resilience, reliability, and clean energy under rising demand.

✅ Hardening substations, lines, and transformers against extreme weather

✅ Integrating EV load, DERs, and renewables into transmission and distribution

✅ Using AI, sensors, and automation to cut outages and speed restoration

The power grid in the U.S. is aging and already struggling to meet current demand, with dangerous vulnerabilities documented across the system today. It faces a future with more people — people who drive more electric cars and heat homes with more electric furnaces.

Alice Hill says that's not even the biggest problem the country's electricity infrastructure faces.

"Everything that we've built, including the electric grid, assumed a stable climate," she says. "It looked to the extremes of the past — how high the seas got, how high the winds got, the heat."

Hill is an energy and environment expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. She served on the National Security Council staff during the Obama administration, where she led the effort to develop climate resilience. She says past weather extremes can no longer safely guide future electricity planning.

"It's a little like we're building the plane as we're flying because the climate is changing right now, and it's picking up speed as it changes," Hill says.

The newly passed infrastructure package dedicates billions of dollars to updating the energy grid with smarter electricity infrastructure programs that aim to modernize operations. Hill says utility companies and public planners around the country are already having to adapt. She points to the storm surge of Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

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"They thought the maximum would be 12 feet," she says. "That storm surge came in close to 14 feet. It overcame the barriers at the tip of Manhattan, and then the electric grid — a substation blew out. The city that never sleeps [was] plunged into darkness."

Hill noted that Con Edison, the utility company providing New York City with energy, responded with upgrades to its grid: It buried power lines, introduced artificial intelligence, upgraded software to detect failures. But upgrading the way humans assess risk, she says, is harder.

"What happens is that some people tend to think, well, that last storm that we just had, that'll be the worst, right?" Hill says. "No, there is a worse storm ahead. And then, probably, that will be exceeded."

In 2021, the U.S. saw electricity outages for millions of people as a result of historic winter storms in Texas, a heatwave in the Pacific Northwest and Hurricane Ida along the Gulf Coast. Climate change will only make extreme weather more likely and more intense, driving longer, more frequent outages for utilities and customers.

In the West, California's grid reliability remains under scrutiny as the state navigates an ambitious clean energy shift.

And that has forced utility companies and other entities to grapple with the question: How can we prepare for blackouts and broader system stress we've never experienced before?

A modern power station in Maryland is built for the future
In the town of Edgemere, Md., the Fitzell substation of Baltimore Gas and Electric delivers electricity to homes and businesses. The facility is only a year or so old, and Laura Wright, the director of transmission and substation engineering, says it's been built with the future in mind.

She says the four transformers on site are plenty for now. And to counter the anticipated demand of population growth and a future reliance on electric cars, she says the substation has been designed for an easy upgrade.

"They're not projecting to need that additional capacity for a while, but we designed this station to be able to take that transformer out and put in a larger one," Wright says.

Slopes were designed to insulate the substation from sea level rise. And should the substation experience something like a catastrophic flooding event or deadly tornado, there's a plan for that too.

"If we were to have a failure of a transformer," Wright says, "we can bring one of those mobile transformers into the substation, park it in the substation, connect it up in place of that transformer. And we can do that in two to three days."

The Fitzell substation is a new, modern complex. Older sites can be knocked down for weeks.

That raises the question: Can the amount of money dedicated to the power grid in the new infrastructure legislation actually make meaningful changes to the energy system across the country, where studies find more blackouts than other developed nations persist?

"The infrastructure bill, unfortunately, only scratches the surface," says Daniel Cohan, an associate professor in civil and environmental engineering at Rice University.

Though the White House says $65 billion of the infrastructure legislation is dedicated to power infrastructure, a World Resources Institute analysis noted that only $27 billion would go to the electric grid — a figure that Cohan also used.

"If you drill down into how much is there for the power grid, it's only about $27 billion or so, and mainly for research and demonstration projects and some ways to get started," he says.

Cohan, who is also author of the forthcoming book Confronting Climate Gridlock, says federal taxpayer dollars can be significant but that most of the needed investment will eventually come from the private sector — from utility companies and other businesses spending "many hundreds of billions of dollars per decade," even as grid modernization affordability remains a concern. He also says the infrastructure package "misses some opportunities" to initiate that private-sector action through mandates.

"It's better than nothing, but, you know, with such momentous challenges that we face, this isn't really up to the magnitude of that challenge," Cohan says.

Cohan argues that thinking big, and not incrementally, can pay off. He believes a complete transition from fossil fuels to clean energy by 2035 is realistic and attainable — a goal the Biden administration holds — and could lead to more than just environmental benefit.

"It also can lead to more affordable electricity, more reliable electricity, a power supply that bounces back more quickly when these extreme events come through," he says. "So we're not just doing it to be green or to protect our air and climate, but we can actually have a much better, more reliable energy supply in the future."

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Site C Dam Court Ruling could halt hydroelectric project near Fort St. John, as First Nations cite Treaty 8 rights in B.C. Supreme Court against BC Hydro, reservoir flooding, and Peace River Valley impacts.

Key Points

Potential B.C. Supreme Court stop to Site C, grounded in Treaty 8 rights claims by First Nations against BC Hydro.

✅ Trial expected in 2022 before planned 2023 reservoir flooding

✅ Treaty 8 rights and Peace River Valley impacts at issue

✅ Talks ongoing among B.C., BC Hydro, West Moberly, Prophet River

The Site C dam could still be stopped by an "eleventh hour" court ruling, according to the lawyer representing B.C. First Nations opposed to the massive hydroelectric project near Fort St. John.

The B.C. government, BC Hydro and West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations were in B.C. Supreme Court Feb. 28 to set a 120-day trial, expected to begin in March 2022.

That date means a ruling would come prior to the scheduled flooding of the dam's reservoir area in 2023 said Tim Thielmann, legal counsel for the West Moberly First Nation.

"The court has left itself the opportunity for an eleventh hour cancellation of the project," he said.

Construction continues

At the core of the case is First Nations arguments the multi-billion dollar BC Hydro dam will cause irreparable harm to its territory and way of life — even as drought strains hydro production elsewhere — rights protected under Treaty 8.

The West Moberly have previously warned it believes Site C constitutes a $1 billion treaty violation.

​In 2018, the First Nations lost a bid for an injunction order, meaning construction of the dam is continuing despite warnings that delays could cost $600 million to the project.

First Nations 'deeply frustrated' after B.C. Supreme Court dismisses Site C injunction

The judge in the case said the ruling was made because if the First Nations lost the challenge, the project would be needlessly put into disarray.

Province, Nations enter talks to avoid litigation

Also this week the B.C. government announced it has entered into talks with BC Hydro and the two First Nations in an attempt to avoid the court process altogether, amid broader energy debates such as bridging the Alberta-B.C. electricity gap for climate goals.

Thielmann said the details of the talk are confidential, but his clients are willing to pursue all avenues in order to stop the dam from moving forward.

"They are trying to save what little is left [of the Peace River Valley]", he said.

Tim Thielmann of Sage Legal is representing the West Moberly First Nation in its lawsuit aimed at stopping Site C. (Sage Legal)

In the meantime, the parties will continue to prepare for the 2022 court dates.

The latest figure on the cost of the dam is $10.7 billion, in a billions-over-budget project that the premier says will proceed. When complete, it would power the equivalent of 450,000 homes a year, though use of Site C's electricity remains a point of debate.

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BC Hydro drought operations address climate change impacts with hydropower scheduling, reservoir management, water conservation, inflow forecasting, and fish habitat protection across the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island while maintaining electricity generation from storage facilities.

Key Points

BC Hydro drought operations conserve water, protect fish, and sustain hydropower during extended heat and low inflows.

✅ Proactive reservoir releases protect downstream salmon spawning.

✅ Reduced flows at Puntledge, Coquitlam, and Ruskin/Stave facilities.

✅ System relies on northern storage to maintain electricity supply.

BC Hydro is adjusting its operating plans around power generation as extended heat and little forecast rain continue to impact the province, a report says.

“Unpredictable weather patterns related to climate change are expected to continue in the years ahead and BC Hydro is constantly adapting to these evolving conditions, especially after events such as record demand in 2021 that tested the grid,” said the report, titled “Casting drought: How climate change is contributing to uncertain weather and how BC Hydro’s generation system is adapting.”

The study said there is no concern with BC Hydro being able to continue to deliver power through the drought because there is enough water at its larger facilities, even as issues like crypto mining electricity use draw scrutiny from observers.

Still, it said, with no meaningful precipitation in the forecast, its smaller facilities in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island will continue to see record low or near record low inflows for this time of the year.

“In the Lower Mainland, inflows since the beginning of September are ranked in the bottom three compared to historical records,” the report said.

The report said the hydroelectric system is directly impacted by variations in weather and the record-setting, unseasonably dry and warm weather this fall highlights the impacts of climate change, while demand patterns can be counterintuitive, as electricity use even increased during Earth Hour 2018 in some areas, hinting at challenges to come.

It noted symptoms of climate change include increased frequency of extreme events like drought and intense storms, and rapid glacial melt.

“With the extremely hot and dry conditions, BC Hydro has been taking proactive steps at many of our South Coast facilities for months to conserve water to protect the downstream fish habit,” spokesperson Mora Scott said. “We began holding back water in July and August at some facilities anticipating the dry conditions to help ensure we would have water storage for the later summer and early fall salmon spawning.”

Scott said BC Hydro’s reservoirs play an important role in managing these difficult conditions by using storage and planning releases to provide protection to downstream river flows. The reservoirs are, in effect, a battery waiting to be used for power.

While the dry conditions have had an impact on BC Hydro’s watersheds, several unregulated natural river systems — not related to BC Hydro — have fared worse, with rivers drying up and thousands of fish killed, the report said.

BC Hydro is currently seeing the most significant impacts on operations at Puntledge and Campbell River on Vancouver Island as well as Coquitlam and Ruskin/Stave in the Lower Mainland.

To help manage water levels on Vancouver Island, BC Hydro reduced Puntledge River flows by one-third last week and on the Lower Mainland reduced flows at Coquitlam by one-third and Ruskin/Stave by one quarter.

However, the utility company said, there are no concerns about continued power delivery.

“British Columbians benefit from BC Hydro’s integrated, provincial electricity system, which helps send power across the province, including to Vancouver Island, and programs like the winter payment plan support customers during colder months,” staff said.

Most of the electricity generated and used in B.C. is produced by larger facilities in the north and southeast of the province — and while water levels in those areas are below normal levels, there is enough water to meet the province’s power needs, even as additions like Site C's electricity remain a subject of debate among observers.

The Glacier Media investigation found a quarter of BC Hydro's power comes from the Mica, Revelstoke and Hugh Keenleyside dams on the Columbia River. Some 29% comes from dams in the Peace region, including the under-construction Site C project that has faced cost overruns. At certain points of the year, those reservoirs are reliant on glacier water.

Still, BC Hydro remains optimistic.

Forecasts are currently showing little rain in the near-term; however, historically, precipitation and inflows show up by the end of October. If that does not happen, BC Hydro said it would continue to closely track weather and inflow forecasts to adapt its operations to protect fish, while regional cooperation such as bridging with Alberta remains part of broader policy discussions.

Among things BC Hydro said it is doing to adapt are:

Continuously working to improve its weather and inflow forecasting;
Expanding its hydroclimate monitoring technology, including custom-made solutions that have been designed in-house, as well as upgrading snow survey stations to automated, real-time snow and climate stations, and;
Investing in capital projects — like spillway gate replacements — that will increase resiliency of the system to climate change.

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COVID-19 Impact on US Electric Grid: utilities, ERCOT, PJM, and MISO brace for load shifts as remote work rises, industrial demand falls, and nuclear plants enforce pandemic planning to maintain reliability and resilience.

Key Points

Pandemic-driven changes in electricity demand and operations as utilities shift to remote work and reduced industrial use.

✅ Utilities enact remote work and suspend disconnections

✅ Grid operators model load shifts and maintain reliability

✅ Nuclear plants sustain operations with pandemic protocols

Operators of the nation's electric grid and energy companies are bracing for the spread of a virus that is undercutting power demand in countries across Asia and Europe as daily activities grind to a halt.

Owners of U.S. utilities and nuclear plants are canceling events, halting travel, pushing remote work and testing ill workers to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

So far, grid operators in the United States say no substantial effect on the electricity demand has emerged, but that could change, even though some reports indicate the U.S. grid is safe for now amid COVID-19. Texas' main grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), expressed uncertainty when asked whether it will see changes in demand patterns for power due to the virus.

"It's too early to tell," Leslie Sopko, a spokeswoman for ERCOT, said in an email.

The virus has already taken a toll on power demand overseas. The chairman of Japan's federation of electric utilities and president of Chubu Electric Power Co., Satoru Katsuno, told reporters Friday the country's power demand has weakened as industrial activity slows due to the outbreak, according to Reuters.

The news outlet similarly reported China's industrial power demand this year may decline as the virus curtailed factory output and prevented some employees from returning to work. And, according to Bloomberg, power use in Italy slumped 7.4% last week after the government there shut down schools and told workers to remain home, while Ontario electricity demand also declined as people stayed home.

U.S. utility executives said the sector is well prepared and has faced the threat of spreading infections before. More than a decade ago, global virus scares like SARS pushed companies to hammer out extensive disaster planning, and those have stuck.

"A lot of the foundational work on contingency planning is actually rooted in pandemic planning because of those experiences in the mid-2000s," Scott Aaronson, the Edison Electric Institute's vice president of security and preparedness, told E&E News. "There is a good body of work and a lot of planning and exercises that have gone into being able to operate through these challenges."

Keeping the nation's electric grid running is a top priority at the Department of Energy, said Chris Fall, the agency's point person for COVID-19, which the new coronavirus causes. "Our responsibility is to make sure the electrical grid is resilient and working," said Fall, who directs the department's Office of Science.

He told an agency podcast, called "Direct Current," that the department is working with the private sector and other elements of the energy system. "Obviously we are connected with other agencies like Homeland Security or [the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] on things like the electrical grid and making sure we have power, and if those people get sick or impacted, we have backups for all of that," he said.

According to a bulletin EEI released on the issue, 40% of a company's employees could be out sick, be quarantined or stay home to care for sick family members. And pandemics may prevent "traditional mutual assistance programs that help companies restore service after natural disasters and weather events," EEI said, such as restoring power in Florida after major storms.

The utility sector is also juggling the needs of its customers. Many major utilities across the nation have vowed to suspend shut-offs and keep power, heat and water on for all customers — a particular concern for people who may be out of work and cannot afford to pay their bills. Companies are also suspending disconnections for nonpayment, some under direction from officials and regulators in states like Ohio and Connecticut, while in Canada Hydro One's peak rate policy has drawn attention among self-isolating customers.

Like other businesses preparing for pandemics, utilities focus on keeping the workforce healthy and operations running. But EEI's Aaronson noted that a key difference with keeping critical infrastructure humming is the possible requirement for the sheltering in place of essential employees who are unable to do their jobs from home, as some operators contemplate locking down key staff at work sites to ensure continuity.

Grid operators are also well-equipped to handle shifts in power demand, and he acknowledged the sector could see changes as more offices and businesses move to remote working. He compared it to the load demand shifts between weekdays and weekends.

"So on the weekends, you're going to have a lot of people at home," Aaronson said. "During the week, it's people in offices. But generally speaking, the ability to have that resiliency and redundancy, the ability to shift resources and the way the grid balances, that is not going to change."

Electricity demand from high-intensity industries like manufacturing or theme parks like Disneyland could also wane, he added, even as electricity inequality in California influences who is most affected.

"It's not just a load shift to the residential, but it's also the load drop in some cases," Aaronson said. "Some of the commercial and industrial customers are going to be working a little bit less than they are presently."

Nuclear plants
Work is continuing at the Plant Vogtle nuclear construction project after Georgia Power Co. announced that one of the site workers is being tested for the coronavirus. The utility does not have the results of that test, a Georgia Power spokesman said late yesterday afternoon. The person works primarily in an office setting and is not on the construction site where two nuclear reactors are being built.

A second worker was tested Saturday, and those results were negative, spokesman John Kraft told E&E News.

Vogtle boasts a high worker count of 9,000 across the entire construction site, which includes office buildings. This is mostly craft laborers, but there are also administrators, executives and Nuclear Regulatory Commission safety inspectors.

A number of contractors and vendors are also on site given the complexity of the project.

Employees who were near the office worker being tested have been sent home until the company receives results. If the test is positive, then those workers will stay home for 14 days, Georgia Power said.

"The company is taking every action to prepare for impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic," Kraft said in a statement. This includes using advice from medical professionals and the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Georgia Power, owned by Atlanta-based Southern Co., informed regulators at the NRC that a worker was being tested. The federal commission itself has pandemic plans in place to ensure continued oversight, including robust work-from-home capabilities and "social distancing" practices to limit close contact among employees at headquarters.

NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said in an email that telework is not unusual for the agency, and about 75% of its workforce is already equipped to work remotely. The commission tested its telework readiness Friday. Some positions require workers to stay on-site to ensure safe reactor operations, Burnell added.

The nuclear industry has maintained pandemic preparedness plans and procedures since 2006, which have been shared with federal agencies, according to Mary Love, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Energy Institute. "NEI members are participating in weekly calls to facilitate communications, coordination and best practices," she said.

According to NEI statistics, each plant averages 500 to 1,000 workers. While not every position is essential to operations, some areas like the control room cannot be conducted remotely.

"We know that nuclear power plant operations and the availability of electric service will be tremendously important in minimizing the impact of the situation on the general public," Love added. "We are confident, based on extensive planning, that the industry will continue to operate nuclear plants safely as this event unfolds."

Grid operators
Hundreds of workers responsible for overseeing critical operations of the U.S. electric grid are being encouraged to work from home, their offices are being sanitized, and in-person meetings are being moved online.

PJM Interconnection, the nation's largest grid operator covering some 65 million people across Mid-Atlantic and Midwest states, said Friday a forecast on load changes was not yet available.

PJM has moved all stakeholder meetings online. Employee travel has been suspended, as have external visits to its headquarters in Valley Forge, Pa.

Employees "are equipped to work remotely, if necessary, to maintain business continuity," and PJM "is prepared and able to run and support all market applications from its campus or remotely, as needed," the operator said.

"PJM recognizes that these measures have significant impacts to our staff, members and stakeholders," PJM said on its coronavirus response webpage. "We are dedicated to striking a balance between those impacts and our number one priority — the reliability of the grid."

Still pending at the operator is a decision about its annual meeting in Chicago at the beginning of May. That decision will be made by April 3, PJM said.

The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), which runs the bulk power grid across 15 states and the Canadian province of Manitoba, is also holding meetings via conference call or online and restricting all business travel.

MISO has encouraged "nonessential" employees to work remotely, leaving only those who actively monitor and manage the operation of the grid working on-site.

The grid operator employs nearly 1,000 people, including 780 at its headquarters in Carmel, Ind.

A board meeting set for the last week of March in New Orleans hasn't yet been canceled, with a final decision on whether to move forward with the meeting expected today.

MISO said it hasn't encountered other changes in normal operations and has not seen significant shifts in electricity demand.

In Texas, ERCOT has about 750 employees, mostly at its campus in the city of Taylor. ERCOT's Sopko said the grid operator is encouraging employees who are not required to be on-site to work from home. The policy is voluntary at this time, but that could change quickly, she said Friday.

ERCOT is also taking extra steps to keep workers safe, including alternating use of facilities, encouraging social distancing and imposing control room measures as part of its pandemic planning, she added.

Energy companies
In the Midwest, utilities including DTE Energy Co., Commonwealth Edison, Consumers Energy and Ameren Corp. said they're following CDC guidance and working with state and local officials to help slow the spread of the virus. That means asking employees who can do their jobs at home to do so, restricting visitors to company offices, canceling large assemblies and nonessential business travel, and holding meetings by phone or online.

Chicago-based ComEd, which serves 4 million customers, is imposing a moratorium on service disconnections and waiving new late payment charges through at least May 1, in addition to working with customers who are facing financial hardships on a case-by-case basis to establish payment arrangements and identify energy assistance options, spokesman Paul Elsberg said.

Many of the Southeast's major energy companies are also curbing travel and encouraging telework, among other steps, in response to the coronavirus.

For Southern Co., this includes its Georgia Power unit; Southern Power; and employees of Southern Company Gas, who are in Illinois, Tennessee and Virginia. Southern has not extended the policies to its Alabama and Mississippi electric companies, spokesman Schuyler Baehman said.

Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke Energy Corp. has suspended all business travel unless workers are traveling by car. The energy giant also is encouraging its employees to rethink their own vacations if upcoming trips take them out of the country.

"Circumstances are changing rapidly around the world," the company said in a statement.

For workers who must come to the office, or work at power plants or on the lines, utilities are doubling down on disinfectant in those areas.

"We're also reminding our employees that we provide a very critical service; we need you well, we need you able," said Le-Ha Anderson, a spokeswoman for Richmond, Va.-based Dominion Energy Inc.

Dominion started asking employees a few weeks ago to take mobile devices home and make sure they have what they need to work remotely. Anyone who has traveled to one of the CDC-identified hot spots is asked to stay home for 14 days with no questions asked, Anderson said.

The federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority has reviewed and updated its plans on how it will operate during a pandemic but has not yet reached the point to have employees telework if they are able to do so.

"We come at this at a very phased approach," TVA spokesman Jim Hopson said. "We can't just shut the doors."

State utility commissions, too, have begun taking steps. In response to a state of emergency declared by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio on Thursday directed utilities to act where possible to avoid suspending service to customers.

Will Seuffert, executive secretary of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, said in an email that the regulator has canceled all public hearings and agenda meetings for the next two weeks and has been supporting telework "throughout the agency" in response to the virus.

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