An emergency order issued Feb. 23 by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) directs PJM Interconnection LLC, in coordination with Constellation Energy Corp., to keep two units operating at Pennsylvania’s Eddystone Generating Station.
“This emergency order will mitigate the risk of blackouts and maintain affordable, reliable, and secure electricity access across the region,” DOE Secretary Chris Wright said.
PJM and Constellation must ensure Units 3 and 4 at the generating station — which is located on the Delaware River in Eddystone, Pa., just south of Philadelphia — remain available for operation to address critical grid reliability issues facing the Mid-Atlantic region.
The units were originally slated to shut down on May 31, 2025, but were deemed critical generation and kept online. They helped stabilize the grid during Winter Storm Fern when they ran for more than 124 hours cumulatively, between Jan. 26-29, providing generation in the midst of the energy emergency, the secretary said.
Wright first ordered the two Eddystone Generating Station units to remain online past their planned retirement date in a May 30, 2025 emergency order. Subsequent DOE orders were issued Aug. 28, 2025 and Nov. 26, 2025.
The emergency conditions that led to the issuance of the original orders persist today, said Wright, who made this new order effective beginning Feb. 24 through May 24.
The Eddystone Generating Station, which is owned and operated by Constellation, is a six-unit, 820-megawatt (MW) power plant. Units 3 and 4, each with a capacity of 380 MW, were installed between 1967 and 1970.
The subcritical steam boiler-turbine generator units can operate on either natural gas or oil, providing flexibility based on market conditions.
Units 10, 20, 30 and 40 are oil-fueled peaking units with a combined capacity of 60 MW and are designed to run during periods of high demand. They were installed in 1967 and 1970, according to Constellation.
Construction of Eddystone began in the mid-1950s, with the now-retired Units 1 and 2 coming online in 1960. Both were supercritical steam boiler-turbine generator units that operated on coal. Unit 1 was retired in 2011, and Unit 2 followed in 2012.
As outlined in DOE’s Resource Adequacy Report, power outages could increase by 100 times in 2030 if the United States continues to take reliable power offline.