NPCC: Adequate electricity supplies forecasted for this summer

The Northeast Power Coordinating Council, Inc. (NPCC) today released the results of its annual summer reliability assessment. The comprehensive assessment projects that the region will have an adequate supply of electricity this summer.
‘The forecast NPCC coincident peak demand for the summer, which is the simultaneous peak demand for the entire region, is about 0.3% lower than last summer’s forecast, primarily due to the effectiveness of ongoing conservation, efficiency and demand response programs, despite a rebounding economy,’said Edward Schwerdt, President and CEO of NPCC.
NPCC’s assessment also projects the region to have approximately the same amount of net generating resources as compared to last year’s summer peak period.
The overall reliability of the system on a day-to-day basis will be improved over the summer as a result of several significant factors: 1) the return of New Brunswick’s Point Lepreau 660 MW nuclear generating unit, which has been off-line for several years; 2) the planned addition of a 660 MW HVDC transmission line between Manhattan and New Jersey; and 3) New England’s 345kV transmission line additions.
For New York City and throughout New York State, an adequate supply of electricity is forecast. This also holds true for Ontario and New England. Finally, the winter peaking Québec and the Canadian Maritime Provinces are expected to meet forecasted electricity demand by a wide margin.
As always, operating procedures are available to maintain reliability for the unlikely simultaneous combination of severe system conditions ‘such as unplanned outage of generating resources, and/or delay of expected transmission projects ‘coincident with higher than expected electricity demands from a wide-spread, prolonged heat wave with high humidity. These actions could include calling on demand-response resources to curtail energy use, or importing emergency power from neighboring regions.
‘The NPCC assessment uses probabilistic methods to evaluate thousands of simulated weather and system conditions. I want to emphasize that the assessment includes the consideration of unexpected and random events,’ added Schwerdt.
These simulations included stressed operating conditions, such as generating plant outages, transmission constraints between and within regions, the unavailability of peak load relief from demand-response programs, extension of generator scheduled maintenance, and delays in the expected in-service dates of planned generation and transmission projects.
A summary of the NPCC 2013 Summer Reliability Assessment is available at: www.npcc.org
About NPCC
The NPCC geographic region includes the State of New York and the six New England states as well as the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Québec and the Maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Overall, NPCC covers an area of nearly 1.2 million square miles, populated by more than 55 million people.
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--5.15.2013