BATON ROUGE - The U.S. Department of Energy issued an emergency order due to extreme heat to mitigate the risk of blackouts across 17 states. 

DOE issued the emergency order on Sunday, and it will remain effective until Aug. 3, according to its website. The order allows the Southwest Power Pool to dispatch backup generation units to maintain energy reliability, according to a news release.

However, the backup energy units are intended for use as a last resort before declaring an Energy Emergency Alert. 

The emergency order includes these states:

-Arizona
-Arkansas
-Colorado
-Iowa
-Kansas
-Louisiana
-Minnesota
-Missouri
-Montana
-Nebraska
-New Mexico
-North Dakota
-Oklahoma
-South Dakota
-Texas
-Utah
-Wyoming

The DOE says there is approximately 35 gigawatts of unused backup generation nationwide.