The Mid Atlantic Area Council (MAAC) expects to have sufficient generating capacity to serve the 2002 forecast summer peak demand, the regional reliability council recently said in its 2002 summer pre-seasonal assessment. MAAC is forecasting a summer net peak demand of 52,569 MW.

MAAC noted that a portion of the Rockland Electric Co. load located in New Jersey was integrated into the PJM system in early March 2001, which added around 423 MW of Rockland Electric net peak demand into the 2002 summer forecast.

This forecast includes the effects of interruptible demand and load management capabilities that are estimated at 1,619 MW. The forecast peak assumes normal summer weather conditions and the forecast is 1,445 MW lower than the actual MAAC all-time summer peak of 54,014 MW that occurred on Aug. 9, 2001.

Between June 1, 2001 and June 1, 2002, MAAC’s summer generating capacity is expected to increase by a net of 4,112 MW to 62,567 MW. MAAC said that 1,701 MW of the expected increase is already in service. All nuclear units should be in service and at full capacity (13,015 MW) at the time of the peak. MAAC also has 488 MW of external capacity resources. With the planned new generation, existing internal generation and external capacity resources included, the MAAC capacity margin is forecasted to be 16.6%.

Meanwhile, the MAAC reserve margin is expected to be 19.9%. In addition, 960 MW of generating capacity is expected to be added within the summer demand period of June through September, raising the reserve margin to 21.8%.

MAAC noted that it has 1,826 MW of firm transmission service in place for energy sales out of MAAC through the summer peak period. Currently, these transactions are not capacity-backed and therefore can be curtailed in the event of a PJM capacity emergency. Historically, approximately 1,200 MW of the reserved firm transmission service has been used to transfer capacity out of MAAC on peak summer days and could therefore reduce the capacity margin by 1.6%.

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