The month of May provided a nice opportunity to become familiarwith the power emergency procedures that are likely to be utilizedduring peak demand periods in New England, New York, and theSouthwest this summer. The North American Electric ReliabilityCouncil’s 2000 Summer Assessment on the reliability of bulk powersupply officially confirmed last week that these three areasprobably will be challenged to meet peaking loads.

Peak demand is expected to be up 1.7% this summer compared tolast, NERC said, noting, however, that its previous demandpredictions have been on the low side.

NERC attributed the problems in New England and New York tothree main causes: the Plattsburgh Phase Angle Regulator (PAR)failure on March 22, the outage of the Indian Point No. 2 nuclearunit (930 MW) on March 10 and the Hudson Transformer Failure at theNew York-PJM interface.

The Plattsburgh PAR is expected to be out of service for most ofthe year, reducing import capacity into Vermont and causing a 100MW reduction in transfer capability between New York and NewEngland. The larger impact on the bulk electric system, however, isa potential 600 MW reduction in imports from Hydro-Quebec to NewEngland. Indian Point No. 2 is expected to out of service untilmid-June, and if it is out during peak load conditions, it couldlimit New York City’s ability to import power. In addition, one ofthe two (345/230 kV) Hudson transformers failed and will be out ofservice for the entire summer. As a result, the transmissioncapability between PJM and New York will be reduced by 200-400 MWfrom 1,000 MW.

“…..[I]f hot weather ensues in a wide area of the EasternInterconnection, as occurred last summer, the ability to acquireenergy, or more importantly, emergency energy during a capacityemergency, could be very challenging,” NERC’s said in its 2000assessment. “The ability to deliver this energy is somewhatdegraded from last summer due to the above situations and increasedpeak demand.”

NERC noted that preparations, including generation andtransmission maintenance and operator training, and new proceduresfor the purchase and delivery of emergency power in the region arebeing developed. New England has developed a demand-reductionprogram designed to provide 600 MW of relief during peak periods.

“Despite these preparations, and the fact that the overallcapacity resource is slightly improved over last summer, it islikely that emergency procedures will be used in both New York andNew England this summer during peak demand periods,” NERC said.

Meanwhile in the Southwest (New Mexico, Arizona, SouthernNevada, California and Baja California Norte, Mexico) there may notbe “adequate resources to accommodate a widespread severe heat waveor a significantly higher than normal forced outage rate forgeneration.”

In California in particular, a heat wave could lead to capacityshortages, NERC said. “Operating margins may be slim and thermalloading problems may require curtailment of firm demand in NorthernCalifornia, the San Francisco Bay area and the San Diego area.Voltage and voltage stability concerns in the Fresno and SacramentoValley areas may require the use of emergency operating procedures,including the curtailment of firm demand during extremeconditions.”

Areas that have improved conditions since last summer includeAlberta, where 1,384 MW of generation have been added sinceNovember 1998; Texas, which has added more than 5,000 MW of newcapacity; Illinois, eastern Wisconsin and eastern Missouri, whichshould have all their nuclear units operating and 3,000 MW of newgeneration in place this summer; the Southeast, where more than10,000 MW have been added and another 1,400 MW will be in placebefore summer; and MAAC, where PJM has identified remedial actionsto deal with the cause of depressed voltage on an EHV transmissionsystem. (For a copy of the summer 2000 assessment go to NERC’s website at www.nerc.com)

Capacity Margins Dangerously Low

NERC’s longer-term look at reliability (1999-2008) concludesthat capacity margins in the Eastern Interconnection could bedangerously low without the availability of significant newmerchant power generation. The 10-year Reliability Assessment alsowas released this week by NERC. It notes that near-term margins(through 2003) are “at the lowest levels in many years,particularly in the Eastern Interconnection.” However, thosemargins were calculated without the benefit of proposed merchantpower facilities. Plans have been announced for construction of51,600 MW of merchant generation by the end of 2001. With demandexpected to grow by 27,500 MW by the summer of 2001 more than halfof the proposed new generation will be needed “just to keep pacewith demand growth,” NERC noted.

NERC also said there is a growing reliance on “demanddiversity.” Last summer, operators in the Eastern Interconnectionprojected purchasing 13,700 MW of supply from other regions (orabout 2.3% of the total generation in the East). If the trendcontinues there could be insufficient transfer capacity to handlethe demand. Also in the short term, NERC said that there may needto be significant outages of fossil plants in order to installenvironmental control devices to meet EPA’s new nitrogen oxide(NOx) regulations.

NERC’s midpoint projection of peak power demand growth is1.8%/year over the next 10 years. It expects total energy demandwill grow 1.9%/year, which is up from last year’s projection of1.7%/year growth. The projections are substantially lower than thegrowth of the last 10 years, NERC noted. Actual growth has beencloser to NERC’s “high-band” scenario for the next 10 years, whichprojects possible power demand growth of 2.4%/year.

Whether there will be adequate capacity to serve the growth willbe highly dependent on the availability of the 100,000 MW of newmerchant power generation that is planned for installation over thenext 10 years, NERC noted.

Over the long term, NERC said that some of the biggest concerns are whether there are sufficient incentives for construction of new transmission, whether reactive power support is good enough to ensure reliable energy transfers and whether the industry can successfully coordinate the development of generation and transmission to provide a reliable electric grid. (For more details in the report, see NERC’s web site.)

Rocco Canonica

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