The region”™s electricity system has sufficient capacity through 2014, provided that companies who submitted winning bids in a February auction build the power plants they plan, according to a 180-page report issued in late October by ISO New England Inc.
Based in Holyoke, Mass., ISO New England oversees the region”™s electricity system and wholesale market, including the Southwest Connecticut Reliability Project that is stabilizing Fairfield County”™s grid.
After erecting 345-kilovolt transmission lines between Bethel and Norwalk in 2006, a similar connection is under construction between Norwalk and Middletown. In addition, two 115-kilovolt lines are nearing completion this year between Glenbrook and Norwalk, and an undersea cable connecting Connecticut and Long Island, N.Y., is ready for service.
For the first time this year, ISO New England conducted a “forward capacity” auction in an attempt to predict electrical demand years in advance, and to allow companies to bid for the right to build power plants to meet that demand.
In the initial auction, bidders agreed to build seven plants for a total of 350 megawatts of power, sufficient for the equivalent of more than 250,000 homes. That was nearly double the amount that companies bid to generate power for southeast Massachusetts, which likewise has suffered from demand exceeding supply.
In addition, nearly 25 organizations agreed to reduce the strain on the grid caused by their facilities in Connecticut during peak periods, saving an additional 250 megawatts demand.
Due to slowing long-term demand in a down economy, ISO New England has already updated its projections to allow for an up-to-two-years”™ delay in some of the proposed projects, with no impact expected on overall energy supply.
Power generation companies have primarily focused in Southwest Connecticut on so-called fast-start plants that are fired up only when electricity is most needed, such as on hot summer days when air conditioner use peaks.
Of the 350 megawatts promised locally in the debut auction, some 300 megawatts will be supplied from such fast-start generators. The area needs about that much more fast-start capacity to meet its needs until completion of the New England East-West Solution, a series of large-scale projects to laterally connect power plants and customers in southern New England, after decades of attempting to snake transmission lines from northern New England power plants to local customers that use the most energy.
Last week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved “rate incentives” for energy suppliers to build a $1.4 billion transmission line to improve Central Maine Power”™s ability to export power to southern New England. At deadline, it was unclear what impact the project could ultimately have on rates paid by Connecticut businesses and homeowners.
Officials have been working to increase energy capacity even while attempting to comply with new environmental measures that increase the cost of producing that energy. Connecticut is a signatory to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which establishes carbon emission caps on power plants with at least 25 megawatts of capacity. Beginning in 2012, plants must “true up” to Connecticut”™s aggregate annual allowance of 10.7 million tons of carbon-dioxide emissions. In September, energy suppliers were allowed to bid in an RGGI auction to offset their emission caps by purchasing credits from green-energy companies, with the $39 million in funding to be put to use in emission-control technologies and measures.
And in June, the state enacted a new law that gives power generators until 2020 to cut greenhouse gases at least 10 percent below their levels in 1990.
A state commission is scheduled to report next year on additional measures to reduce air pollution.
