Three of the largest power grids in the United States set all-time records for peak electricity demand this summer, according to federal data.
Grid planners say the growing draw from electric vehicle charging is now a permanent part of the load picture they must plan around.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that PJM peaked at 162.6 gigawatts (GW) on July 2, 2026, 1.3% higher than the pre-2026 peak of 160.6 GW on June 23, 2025 , in its Today in Energy report.
Three grids, three new highs
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) peaked at 91.1 GW on July 22, 2026, 6.5% higher than the pre-2026 record of 85.5 GW on August 20, 2024.
The Southwest Power Pool (SWPP) peaked at 58.0 GW on July 27, 2026, 3.5% higher than the pre-2026 peak of 56.0 GW on August 21, 2023 , the agency said.
Most of these peaks occurred during regional heat waves, amid the hottest summer on record nationally, which drove up cooling demand.
Other grids came close to their own records. The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) and the Independent System Operator for New England (ISO-NE) came within 2% of their previous records.
The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) was within 3% of its previous record load, and the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) was within 4% , according to the EIA’s underlying Form EIA-930 data.
Why EV charging now shows up in the load math
Grid operators and forecasters increasingly bundle electric vehicle charging in with data centers, electrification and extreme weather when they explain why peak demand keeps climbing.
ERCOT’s “Forecast” bar represents the core components of the long-term outlook: base economic growth, EV adoption, PV adoption, crypto growth within existing facilities, and known operational Large Load capacity , according to filings with the Public Utility Commission of Texas.
In a separate analysis published weeks earlier, the EIA found that the pace of EV-related load growth itself has slowed.
The agency estimates that light-duty electric vehicles in the United States consumed 8% more electricity during the first six months of 2026 than in the last half of 2025, down from the 13-24% growth seen in six-month periods in recent years, a shift the agency tied to the decline in sales after U.S. federal tax credits expired in September 2025.
Overall, U.S. light-duty electric vehicle electricity use has more than doubled since 1H23, totaling nearly 14 billion kilowatthours in 1H26. Electric cars drew nearly 14 billion kilowatt-hours in the first half of this year.
That volume is still small next to the gigawatt-scale summer peaks now being recorded, but it adds a steady baseline that utilities must forecast years in advance, unlike the short, sharp air-conditioning spikes that drove this summer’s records.
What utilities are doing about the added load
Utilities have already begun rewriting rate structures and charging programs to manage how EV load lands on their systems, rather than waiting for it to strain peak hours.
Massachusetts regulators, for example, approved programs that pay EV drivers to feed power back to the grid during high-demand periods.
California utilities have built flexible connections letting EV chargers skip the standard grid upgrade queue in exchange for accepting curtailment during stress events.
Those kinds of programs matter more as record peaks become routine. ERCOT projected that summer 2026 peak load would fall within a range of approximately 90,500 MW to 98,000 MW , and the grid operator’s actual July 2026 peak of 91.1 GW landed within that range, filed with Texas regulators.
That shows operators now treat record-breaking summers as an expected part of annual planning rather than a rare anomaly.
Looking ahead to next summer
The EIA cautioned that this year’s numbers reflect an unusually hot summer layered on top of structural demand growth, meaning next year’s peaks will depend heavily on weather as well as continued electrification.
MISO peaked at 121.5 gigawatts (GW) on June 30, 2026, the highest in the EIA’s Hourly Electric Grid Monitor but below the previous peak of 127.1 GW on July 20, 2011, as reported by MISO.
That illustrates how older extreme-heat events can still outrank recent summers in some regions even as underlying demand trends upward.
For now, the EV charging share of that demand remains modest compared with air conditioning and industrial load.
But EIA and grid-operator data suggest it is one of the few load categories utilities can both measure and actively shape through pricing and incentives, a tool regulators are testing with increasing frequency as peak records continue to fall.
