Apr302009
No power shortfalls this summer (thanks to recession or efficiency?)
Filed under Energy by david brooks at 10:37 am
New Hampshire Business Review reports that ISO New England, operator of the region’s bulk power system and wholesale electricity markets, says power demand this summer should be “relatively unchanged” from last year, barring record-breaking heat waves or anything like that. Perhaps this is due to increased energy efficiency, but I suspect the recession is the biggest factor; all those empty factories.
NHBR quoted Vamsi Chadalavada, chief operating officer of the Holyoke, Mass.-based not-for-profit corporation, saying that peak electricity demand could reach 27,875 megawatts under normal weather conditions this summer, while the region currently has resources totaling 33,700 megawatts. (For comparison, Seabrook generates about 1,000 megawatts) That figures includes 31,225 megawatts of supply and more than 1,900 megawatts of “demand-response resources” - load management and on-site generators - plus 500 megawatts of energy-efficiency programs.
Chadalavada said the peak demand forecast is a minuscule 110 megawatts higher than the 2008 weather-adjusted peak of 27,765 megawatts, which occurred on June 10. The peak demand record of 28,130 megawatts was set Aug. 2, 2006.
It was only a decade or so ago that New Hampshire’s annual peak electricity usage came in the winter. But we’ve become air-conditioning users, so that’s no longer the case.
