Heat Strains New England Power Grid

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Heat Strains Region's Power Grid By AL LARA The Hartford Courant May 05, 2001

An unusual May heat wave, coinciding with the shutdown of several power plants for seasonal maintenance, strained New England's electric power grid this week.

A sudden change to cooler weather this weekend will stave off energy problems, but the situation illustrates that a surplus of regional power capacity this summer won't always mean a surplus of power.

The hottest temperatures recorded this early in May in more than 40 years came just as 30 percent of the region's power plants were down during what has been a brief window between the winter heating and summer cooling seasons.

New England power plants are capable of producing more than 27,000 megawatts of power, which usually leaves a comfortable margin of 12 to 18 percent of reserve power. But more than 8,000 megawatts of power was unavailable this week because plants were down, refueling or undergoing repairs.

When Thursday's temperatures hit the 90s, air conditioner use drove power demand to an afternoon peak of 18,948 megawatts. A peak of 19,200 megawatts was anticipated on Friday.

Aggravating the problem was the unexpected shutdown due to worker error of the 870-megawatt Millstone Unit 2 nuclear reactor. The Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor is also down for a scheduled refueling. The Millstone reactor has since restarted, and was increasing its power output on Friday.

Ellen M. Foley, a spokeswoman for ISO New England Inc., the independent system operators of the region's bulk electric power grid, said system operators were able to compensate for the loss of Millstone on Monday and Tuesday.

But temperatures in the 90s across New England on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday began to strain resources, requiring the import of power from Canada. That helped the system keep a required reserve margin of 1,800 megawatts.

Unlike other parts of the country, power use peaks in New England both in the winter and in the summer.

"Summer follows the winter heating season pretty closely. That gives power plants only a brief window of opportunity in the spring to conduct seasonal maintenance," Foley said.

That window has been nearly closed this week, with temperatures in the 90s on Wednesday and Thursday.

"Looking at our records [which date back to 1960], Wednesday was the hottest May 3, and the closest runner-up was only 80 degrees," Foley said.

On April 24, ISO New England released its summer forecast, predicting that the region would meet its power needs, including a record peak demand of 23,650 megawatts, with a comfortable margin of reserve power.

Since last summer, the region has added 1,000 megawatts of electricity generation, and another 1,600 megawatts is expected to go on line this summer.

But Vice President of System Operations Stephen G. Whitley said an extended heat wave might require the implementation of energy conservation measures.

http://www.ctnow.com/scripts/editorial.dll?bfromind=582&eeid=4511161&eetype=article&render=y&ck=&userid=1&userpw=.&uh=1,0,&ver=2.8

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), May 05, 2001

Answers

I live in the Northeast. My personal obeservation is that during the last decade ther has been a type of "season shifting". Spring has just about disappeared. We go to very hot weather in May (sometimes even April), and by August it is unseasonably cool.

Have anyone else noticed this?

You would think that the power companies would reschedule their "Spring" maintenance based on this.

-- K (infosurf@yahoo.com), May 06, 2001.


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