PJM's own 7-day hourly load forecast, plotted against realized demand and split across the transmission zones from Chicago to the Carolinas — updated as each vintage is published.
How much power will PJM need this week?
PJM demand peaks at 112,481 MW on Wed, 5 PM, against a low of 70,620 MW — a swing of 41,861 MW across the window. Dominion (Virginia and the data-center corridor) is the heaviest area at 20,406 MW, 18% of the system peak.
Every line above, and who produced it.
Observed or settled values for the plotted intervals. Source: PJM.
A published forecast for the plotted target intervals. Source: PJM.
The same window, split by transmission zone — each area’s own curve.
Every hour of the window, shaded by load.
| 0 | 6 | 12 | 18 | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sun, 10/11 |
| Transmission zone | Peak (MW) | Peak hour | Low (MW) | Average (MW) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOM | 20,406 | Wed, 5 PM | 12,864 | 15,594 |
| AEP | 20,382 | Tue, 5 PM | 13,484 | 16,082 |
| COMED | 14,933 | Mon, 6 PM | 8,119 | 10,289 |
| ATSI | 9,348 | Tue, 4 PM | 6,104 | 7,250 |
| APS | 6,299 | Wed, 5 PM | 4,207 | 5,092 |
| PSEG | 5,886 | Wed, 6 PM | 3,289 | 4,246 |
| PECO | 5,289 | Wed, 5 PM | 2,918 | 3,845 |
| PPL | 5,161 | Wed, 5 PM | 3,335 | 4,172 |
| BGE | 4,596 | Wed, 5 PM | 2,323 | 3,040 |
| PEPCO | 4,345 | Wed, 5 PM | ||
| Forecast | Avg miss (MW) | Avg miss % | Bias | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PJM 7-day load forecast (day-ahead) | 933 | 1.2% | −508 | 24 |
Each forecast frozen as it stood 24 hours ago, then scored against every hour that has settled since. Smaller is better on every column. Bias is signed: positive means the forecast ran high.
| Series | Produced by | Method | Horizon | Issued |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forecast demand | PJM | PJM 7-Day Load Forecast (load_frcstd_7_day), by forecast area | 7 days ahead, hourly | Issue time not exposed by this feed |
PJM publishes a point forecast with no confidence interval. Day-ahead errors are typically a few percent and grow with the horizon, concentrating on fast-moving weather and on holiday load patterns.
PJM operates the grid for 65 million people across thirteen states and the District of Columbia — the largest electricity market in North America. Its 7-day load forecast is the hourly projection the market schedules against. This page plots the current vintage against what has settled, then splits the same forecast across the transmission zones: ComEd around Chicago, the Mid-Atlantic utilities, Dominion in Virginia, AEP across the Ohio Valley.
Load drives price, and in PJM load is also the growth story: data-center demand — concentrated in Dominion's Northern Virginia territory — is pushing zone peaks to records year after year. The forecast peak is what capacity commitments, reserve margins, and day-ahead prices all key off.
PJM republishes the forecast on a rolling basis and Ask the Grid keeps every vintage, so each hour shows the most recently issued number for that hour. The realized-demand line comes from PJM's five-minute instantaneous load feed, which tracks to within minutes of real time.
curl "https://askthegrid.com/api/v1/grid/series?iso=PJM&metric=load_forecast&zone=SYSTEM&hours=168"
Connect your agent to mcp.askthegrid.com and this forecast is a tool call away — the same host Claude and ChatGPT connectors already use.
It is PJM's hourly projection of electricity demand across its thirteen-state footprint for the next seven days, published per forecast area and for the RTO as a whole. PJM schedules generation commitments against it, which makes it the demand number the market actually trades around.
Summer peaks run roughly 140-160 GW for the RTO — the largest of any US market. The zone table shows how that splits: the Mid-Atlantic core, ComEd, Dominion, and AEP each carry loads that would rank among the biggest grids in the country on their own.
Data centers, above everything else. Northern Virginia is the largest data-center market in the world and sits in Dominion's PJM zone; electrification and manufacturing add to it. After two decades of flat load, PJM's own forecasts now show sustained growth, which is reshaping its capacity market and interconnection queue.
Plotted window Oct 11, 5:00 AM EDT → Oct 18, 11:00 PM EDT. Republished by PJM on a rolling basis; the latest vintage for each hour is shown.
| Mon, 10/12 |
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| Tue, 10/13 |
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| Wed, 10/14 |
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| Thu, 10/15 |
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| Fri, 10/16 |
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| Sat, 10/17 |
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| Sun, 10/18 |
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Darkest cells are the tightest hours. The window peaks at 112,481 MW on Wed, 5 PM, local to the market.