This time around, businesses barely broke a sweat.
Despite temperatures touching 100 degrees June 10 in parts of Fairfield County, new transmission lines ensured a continuous supply of power ”“ in stark contrast to the scene in August 2006, when blown transformers sparked fires and traffic snarls in Stamford and short tempers throughout the region
New England fell nearly 2,000 megawatts short of its all-time record of 28,130 megawatts in August 2006, but the early-June heat still produced the seventh-highest-ever single day of electricity use.
In a 200-page report issued last week, ISO New England Inc. reported the competitive wholesale market appeared effectively to moderate supply and demand last year, avoiding brownout conditions despite continued fluctuation in the price of fuels needed to power electricity generators.
“The chronic congestion into the southwest corner of Connecticut has been relieved,” declared ISO New England researchers.
New England”™s average wholesale electricity price rose 11 percent last year to $69.57 per megawatt hour, with the increase due almost entirely to increases in the cost of fuel oil and natural gas. The area”™s vulnerability to disruptions in natural gas was underscored last December, after a mechanical glitch interrupted supplies to several generators, forcing ISO New England to intervene.
If businesses have yet to get a break in their monthly bill, they appear to be benefiting from transmission line upgrades by Berlin-based Connecticut Light & Power and New Haven-based United Illuminating Co.
Improvements to the electric grid in southwest Connecticut, particularly the October 2006 activation of a new 345-kilovolt line between Bethel and Norwalk, were key to stabilizing the New England grid, along with similar improvements in the Boston area. The companies are in the process of completing a second such line from Middletown to Norwalk, slated for completion by the end of next year.
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When the second phase is complete, southwest Connecticut will have the ability to import 1,300 more megawatts of power than possible two years ago ”“ sufficient power for more than 900,000 homes.
In June 2007, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission eliminated its peaking-unit safe harbor threshold, a ratepayer-funded subsidy intended to help power companies recover the cost of maintaining generators that are only fired up on the hottest days of the year to meet the added strain caused by air conditioners.
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Connecticut ratepayers also paid just $7 million for commitments from power generators in other areas to be similarly prepared to provide short-term boosts in power if needed. That was the lowest total in more than two years, which ISO New England attributed to the new power lines.
Just as importantly, ISO New England completed a first-ever auction in February that allowed power companies to bid for energy generation incentives and opportunities based on forecasts for the region”™s power needs three years from now. The Forward Capacity Market auction resulted in bids for an additional 600 megawatts of power in Connecticut, including proposals to reduce the demand on the grid through conservation policies such as cutting power use on hot days.
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