New England Is Facing Blackouts This Winter: Grid Operator
New England Is Facing Blackouts This Winter: Grid Operator
A major New England grid operator stated that it’s preparing for a possible strain on the power grid amid a surge in demand for natural gas that threatens to reduce supplies.
ISO New England, the power grid operator in the northeastern United States, stated that an especially cold winter could spark blackouts due to it not having enough natural gas that’s designed for power generation, officials told The Wall Street Journal on Oct. 17.
“The most challenging aspect of this winter is what’s happening around the world and the extreme volatility in the markets,” Vamsi Chadalavada, ISO New England’s chief operating officer, told the paper in an interview.
LS Power Development Vice President Nathan Hanson said his firm is filling backup tanks with oil to produce in case the natural gas supply dries up.
“The grid overall is in a much tighter position,” he told the media outlet. “If we get a sustained cold period in New England this winter, we’ll be in a very similar position as California was this summer.”
Thad Hill, CEO of Calpine Corp.—an operator of plants in the Northeastern region—said fuel supplies for the winter will be expensive, but he doesn’t anticipate any power outages or strain on the grid.
“The goal should be to put in place a market mechanism that’s actually durable for all but the most egregious situations,” he told the Journal.
The Energy Information Association’s short-term energy outlook, which was posted last week, shows that wholesale prices at trading hubs will be 20 percent to 60 percent higher on average for the winter of 2022–23.
“The highest wholesale electricity prices are likely to be in New England because of possible natural gas pipeline constraints, reduced fuel inventories for power generation, and uncertainty regarding liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments given the tight global supply conditions,” the agency stated.
No Curbs on Exports
Earlier this month, unnamed White House officials told Reuters that there will be no ban or curbs on natural gas exports this winter. The officials say they want to help alleviate energy shortages in Europe following the Russia–Ukraine conflict and bans on Russian energy in recent months.
Biden administration officials are bracing for the prospect that inflation-fatigued Americans will pay higher home-heating bills this winter. Inventories of natural gas, the nation’s primary heating fuel, are at historically low levels after U.S. companies exported record amounts to Europe in recent months to counter a cut in supplies and higher prices for European power plants.
“And because of the steps we and our partners have been taking, gas storage in Europe is at a significantly higher level than last year. More work remains,” one official said.
The average cost of U.S. home heating is expected to rise by 17.2 percent from last winter to $1,202, putting millions of low-income families at risk of falling behind on their energy bills, according to a recent report by the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEAD).
Cold Air
This week, temperatures in the Midwest and on the East Coast are slated to plummet as a mass of Arctic air is forecast to descend on areas east of the Rocky Mountains.
“Much below normal temperatures with morning frost/freeze conditions are expected for much of the eastern U.S. behind a strong cold front for the first half of the week,” the National Weather Service stated in an Oct. 17 update. “The Northwest will remain warmer than normal over the next few days thanks to the continued presence of upper-level high pressure resulting in some record temperatures and areas of wildfire smoke with unhealthy air quality.”
Representatives for ISO New England didn’t respond to requests for comment by press time.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Comment by Willem Post on October 19, 2022 at 7:09am
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COLD WEATHER OPERATION IN NEW ENGLAND DECEMBER 24, 2017 TO JANUARY 8, 2018-r
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/cold-weather-operation...
This article describes in detail what happened in New England during an unusual cold period.
As there was insufficient natural gas in storage, increased fuel oil had to be used
When stored fuel oil almost ran out, increased coal had to be used.
This entire situation arose, due to environmental zealots in New York State, Connecticut and Massachusetts banding together to not allow:1) The building of sufficient natural gas pipelines from Pennsylvania to New England
2) The building of sufficient gas and fuel oil storage near gas/oil-fired CCGT plants.
3) The keeping of coal and nuclear plants for standby service, as needed, but pushing for the premature closing of the plants.
This is analogous to Germany’s 20-plus-years of ENERGIEWENDE idiocy, etc., which has led to all sorts of very expensive disruptions of the German and European economy and society.
Biden’s folks are belatedly “reinventing” THAT wind/solar/battery wheel, with their “Inflation Reduction” Act.
This ISO-NE report details the history of the cold period
https://www.iso-ne.com/static-assets/documents/2018/01/20180112_col...
Pages 13, 37, 42, 48, 49, 50 of the report are of particular interest.
The report served to document a set of unusual circumstances, that are highly likely to repeat themselves in the future, such as:
- Very low winter temperatures, lasting several days, which could have been accompanied with low wind and solar conditions.
- Natural gas supply being diverted from power plants to residential and commercial buildings for space heating.
- Oil/gas-fired CCGT plants having insufficient, nearby fuel supply (natural gas and oil) in storage facilities.
- A transmission line failure; the nuclear output decreased, which was made up by burning more fuel oil.
- A major plant having an unscheduled outage.
- Imports via tie lines with Canada and New York State varying up and down. Net imports add about 19% to the total NE grid load, on an annual basis. See page 42
The NE area just barely avoided rolling black-outs during the cold period.
If low temperatures had persisted just 2 days longer, the fuel oil supply would have been depleted.
NOTE: To rely on the weather to provide electricity is full of pitfalls, as Europe, California and Texas, etc., have found out.
In 2022, there was plenty of hot weather and sunshine, but little wind and rainfall in Europe
As a result, there was much solar electricity, but little wind electricity, and reduced hydro electricity
Nuclear electricity, especially in France, was also reduced, because those plants need adequate cooling water to function.
Importance of Stored Fuel Oil to the NE Grid.
Anyone advocating reducing the barely adequate NE oil and gas storage system capacity is seriously irrational.
The table, prepared by Warren Van Wyck, shows the lack of sufficient natural gas storage capacity near power plants, which required major quantities of fuel oil to take its place; fuel oil has much higher cost/kWh, and emits more CO2/kWh
Cold Period Days
Oil, MWh
NE generation, %
Sun, Dec 24, 2017
3,176
1.3
Mon, Dec 25, 2017
3,030
1.2
Tue, Dec 26, 2017
10,444
3.5
Wed, Dec 27, 2017
47,719
15.0
Thu, Dec 28, 2017
104,187
28.8
Fri, Dec 29, 2017
100,896
28.8
Sat, Dec 30, 2017
88,587
26.0
Sun, Dec 31, 2017
89,853
26.2
Mon, Jan 01, 2018
95,572
26.9
Tue, Jan 02, 2018
117,398
30.8
Wed, Jan 03, 2018
106,142
30.3
Thu, Jan 04, 2018
79,958
23.8
Fri, Jan 05, 2018
118,898
34.5
Sat, Jan 06, 2018
125,591
34.9
Sun, Jan 07, 2018
129,912
36.4
Mon, Jan 08, 2018
82,052
24.8
Closing Power Plants and Constraining Fuel Supplies
Various nuclear and coal plants had previously been politically shutdown, instead of being kept for standby purposes, as is done in other countries, such as Germany.
Natural gas supply to the NE area, and to NE gas and oil storage systems, had previously been politically constrained.
The Irrelevance of Wind and Solar During Stressful and Peak Conditions
- Solar, 2400 MW nameplate, behind-the-meter (monitored by utilities), on distribution grids, maximal at midday, never exceeded 800 MW. Near-zero solar is guaranteed during late-afternoon/early-evening, when peak demand hours occurred. See page 48
- Solar, 83 MW nameplate, before-the-meter (monitored by ISO-NE), on the HV grid, maximal at midday, never exceeded 26 MW. Near-zero solar is guaranteed during late-afternoon/early-evening, when peak demand hours occurred. See page 49
- Wind, 1300 MW nameplate, randomly varied up and down between 1000 MW to 100 MW. The lows could occur at any time during late-afternoon/early-evening, when peak demand hours occurred. See page 50
The build-out of additional wind and solar capacity, MW, provides a minimal additional predictable, reliable source of electricity, especially during: 1) multi-day wind/solar lulls, and 2) peak demand hours of late-afternoon/early-evening.
Hydro plants with very large reservoirs, such as in Quebec and Norway, and pumped-storage plants, with large upper reservoirs, plus lower reservoirs with pumps, useful service lives about 100 years, are the only economic ways to store large quantities of variable, intermittent, weather-dependent, wind and solar electricity.
Using grid-scale battery systems, useful service life about 15 years, would be at least 10 to 15 times more costly per kWh, delivered as AC. See URLs
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/grid-scale-battery-sys...
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital...
History Will Repeat Itself, Unless Sanity Prevails
A set of circumstances, similar to the above, is likely to happen more often, if the “leave-it-in-the-ground-recommendations” of RE folks, who likely never analyzed, never designed, and never operated any energy system, would actually be implemented.
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A lot of horse manure statements are being made by various folks who likely have known for years SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND does not have enough natural gas and fuel oil storage systems near power plants, to get NE through a long cold spell, without the utter disgrace of rolling blackouts.
ISO-NE should require power plants maintain at least a month of fuel in storage, prior to the winter
Batteries would be far too expensive
Wind and solar would be totally unreliable, and expensive, as Texas, California,, and Germany, and all of Europe have found out
US-dominated NATO barking at Russia’s borders for decades, for geo-political reasons, and turning Ukraine, led by neo-NAZI elements, into a Russia-hating armed camp since 2014, to “weaken” Russia, finally led to the present Ukraine situation.
Why should the US people suffer for the European mistake of closing gas, oil, coal and nuclear plants, and relying on wind, solar, and batteries, and low-cost imports from Russia?
Maine as Third World Country:
CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power
Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.
Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT
******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********
(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/
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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law
Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future
"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."
https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/
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