The Northeast Grid and the Oil

ISO-NE Report on Cold Weather Grid Performance

It was dramatically cold here in the Northeast from late December through January 8.  Temperatures of ten below were common. The grid used amazing (30% or more) amounts of oil, as the power plants could not get gas. (I wrote a couple of blog posts about this, which I reference at the end of this post.)

On January 16, ISO-NE issued a report on the grid behavior during this period. Cold Weather Operations, December 24, 2017 through  January 8, 2018.  This document is worth reading.   Frankly, in my blog posts, I simply did not know how bad things were becoming on the grid. Let me quote viewgraph 11 of the ISO report:

"As gas became uneconomic, the entire season’s oil supply rapidly depleted"

Pictures speak louder than words

This is a story best told in graphics.

As I noted earlier, the generation mix on the grid shifted heavily to oil. On December 24, 2017, oil supplied 2% of grid electricity. On January 6, 2018, oil provided 36% of the electricity. ISO slide 14 shows this very effectively.

Slide 14
from ISO report
Double click to expand
Other illustrations are from the same report

Update:  Ed Pheil pointed something out to me: if I don't explain that demand on the grid was rising between 12/24 and 1/1/, the decline in nuclear's share of the grid electricity (from 39% to 27% etc.) is inexplicable.  Did the nuclear plants go off-line?  No. But there are only so many nuclear plants, and they can make only so much power.

The chart below shows a steady line of "daily generation" for the nuclear plants.  It is the green line near the top of the chart. There's one exception: Pilgrim went off line when a transmission line failed.   You can see the dip.

Thank you to Ed.  This was a necessary clarification.

Slide 13

Local natural gas prices soared, while Marcellus shale prices remained fairly steady.  Electricity prices followed the natural gas prices. However, generators that could switch to oil did the switch. Oil was was less expensive. Natural gas prices rose about 30 fold (from around $3 to around $90, as shown below)

Slide 30

Due to power plants using lower-priced oil, however, prices on the grid rose from around $50 to around to $450/MWh, only a ten-fold rise.

Slide 55

Oil Depletion

The region was burning oil far faster than it was replenishing it.  On December 1, we had 68% (of the maximum oil) available to power plants.   On January 8, we had 19%.

Slide 21

For a more dramatic picture, ISO shows a single power plant's oil supply, which went from an eight-day supply to a one-day supply over the same period.

Slide 22

There are many important slides.  For example, slide 17 shows how the generators that were enrolled in the ISO-NE Winter Reliability Program really picked up the slack, and slide 18 compares the amount of oil burned in the two weeks of cold with the amount of oil burned the previous two years.  (More was burned in the two weeks of cold.)  

And then there was all the scrambling to keep things going. Slides 35 and 36 show that there were emergency conference calls about the grid---pretty much every day.  

What have we learned?

Much as I dislike burning oil for power, I dislike widespread outages even more.  I give ISO-NE tremendous credit for the Winter Reliability Program, and for keeping the lights on.

According to the last slide in the ISO program, replenishment of oil is the key issue for reliable operation during cold weather in New England.  ISO-NE is correct,  according to their charter.

slide 62

However, the ISO-NE charter is limited.  For me, the important thing is to keep Northeastern nuclear plants operating. Nuclear plants are thoroughly reliable.  (Yes, Pilgrim went offline due to a transmission line failure.) Nuclear plants keep making electricity, no matter what the weather might be, as long as there is a transmission line to send out their power. 

In cold weather, we need reliability. In cold weather, we need nuclear. 

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Earlier blog posts:

Successful encouragement of oil on the New England grid, December 27.

More cold and more oil on the New England grid, December 29

Vermont, Hot Air, and Puerto Rico, January 7

More Cold and More Oil on the New England Grid

Oil Use Increases

Once again, I will tell this blog in a series of pictures.

In my blog of December 27, I showed a snapshot of the New England grid in the early evening.  The temperature at my location was 7 degrees, the local marginal prices (LMP) on the grid were running around $200 MWh (20 cents per kWh), oil was 22% of the fuel mix, renewables were 11% of the fuel mix (I remarked that this was on the high side for renewables) and the high renewable percentage was due to the wind energy.  Wind was 50% of the renewables.  The blog post was Successful encouragement of oil on the New England Grid.  The source of all the information (except the local weather) was the ISO-NE web page, ISOExpress.

That post was on December 27.  Yesterday, December 28, I noted that the percentage of oil had gone up above 30%, and the portion of renewables had gone down.  But I didn't write another blog post. My snapshot is below. (Double click on any graphic to enlarge it.)

December 28 fuel mix

Getting Colder, and Oil Use Stays High

Today, around 1 pm, the temperature was 1 degree, as show below. The weather had gotten colder.

1 p.m. December 29 temperature

The price of power on the grid had also gotten higher, around $300/ MWh (30 cents per kWh)

1 pm December 29 prices on the grid

Though I must admit that as I write this at 3 p.m, the price has fallen again to around $200/ MWh.  Also, note the color codes on the map.  The colors show the prices graphically.  Closer to red is higher priced.

Oil use has stayed high, from December 28 evening (above) to one pm December 29, (when I took a bunch of screen shots) to right now at 3 pm.  Oil has been between 30 and 32% of the grid.

December 29, oil is around 30% of grid power

Not as much wind on the grid

What about the renewables?  On December 27, a windy day, renewables were at 11% of the grid, and wind was 50% of renewables.  (See my December 27 post for the graphics on this.)

Today, at one pm, not so much wind.  It was actually snowing rather gently.  At that time, renewables were only 7% of the grid power, and wind was only 13% of renewables.

Renewable mix on the grid. Wind at 13%.

 What next?

I think oil use will remain high until the cold weather is over, about a week from now.   The wind may spring up again in the evenings, or it may not.  Whichever it chooses.  Nobody controls the wind.  So renewables may continue at 7% or go up to 11% again.

On the other hand, we haven't really hit peak demand yet.  Here's a screen shot that I just took. This is the ISO-NE estimate of system loads today, and the actual loads up until 3 p.m.

System loads, as forecast

As you can tell in this chart, around 18 hours (6pm) looks like peak demand.  Check in and see if the percentage of oil goes up even further.  I'm going to check.  I'm curious.

Here's the link for these real time updates from ISO-NE, ISO Express. https://www.iso-ne.com/isoexpress/

In conclusion

Isn't it nice that you can store oil on site?  Maybe someone will notice what Rickover noticed: you can store nuclear fuel even more easily than you can store oil!  I wouldn't hold my breath for people to notice this.  (/snark)

Meanwhile, I will check back at about the grid at 6 p.m. but I won't be posting. I leave the evening results as "an exercise to the reader."

The Local Grid: Pictures at the Edge

It's minus 24 at my house this morning, and here are some pix I snapped of the ISO-NE Real-Time system page.

To me, the first one is the most telling: 20,000 MW demand, 243 MW in reserve.  That's too little reserve!

The rest are more typical winter ISO.

Grid running at over $200/MWh.

Actually, it has been bouncing up to over $300/MWh, in the five-minute market.  I just didn't get a screen shot at the higher levels.

And here's the fuel mix: Lots of coal and oil, of course: total of 27%.  Renewables hanging in at 6%.

And the renewables chart. Wind is actually a reasonable part of it, since this has been windy weather.  Wood and refuse dominate, of course.  Of course, what is "reasonable"?  Wind is 17% of 6% on a day the grid  is struggling.

Our summer peak is above 20,000 MW, and today is only 19,000.  However, in the summer, you can get natural gas to the gas-fired plants.

The Cold Truth on the New England Grid This Week: A High-Carbon Fuel Mix

The Grid In Winter

I have been following the New England Grid through the extremely cold weather of  the past few days.  As you would expect, electricity prices have been high, demand is high, and so forth.  Here's a typical screen-shot of the Vermont situation this morning.  Electricity prices above 25c per kWh.  (Price of $274 per MWh is 27 cents per kWh.) This screen shot comes from the ISO-NE main website, where the price ticker keeps changing in real time.

That is hardly the highest it has been. Here's some more information from the ISO-NE express page.  You can see that the variation, with moments of 40 cents/kWh today, and they had around 50 cents yesterday. Alas, I didn't take a screen shot yesterday.  (As usual, you can click on the graphics to enlarge them.)

The demand is soaring, also.

Here's a screen shot of the various areas in ISO-NE, including the lines feeding in from Canada, out to New York, and the cross-sound link to Long Island.

Note, you can see all these charts for yourself, real time, by clicking this link. With sub-zero weather, demand and price are soaring.  Of course.

The interesting thing was the fuel mix.

The Fuel Mix in Winter: Nuclear and Natural Gas are Equal

At the bottom of that same page, there's a little pie-chart of the current fuel mix.  This is an astounding pie chart: nuclear and natural gas are neck-and-neck in supplying power right now.   This is despite the fact that ISO-NE often says that New England is overly dependent on natural gas. The ISO-NE statement about closing Vermont Yankee noted that 52% of New England's electricity is generated with natural gas.  

Well, right now, New England's electricity isn't being generated by natural gas.  With a high demand on the grid, nuclear is 27% and natural gas is 28%.  Since nuclear power is reliable, but the amount is rather fixed, the nuclear component didn't go up.  Instead,  the percentage of natural gas has gone down.  In other words, when we need natural gas in New England, it isn't available.

But take a look at that oil percentage: 18%!  And coal at 13%.  

The lack of availability of natural gas is old news.  Indeed, the high percentage for oil shows that the ISO-NE winter reliability program is working.  In that program this fall,  ISO-NE (well, the rate-payers of New England) payed $75 million in capacity payments for oil-burners to have oil on site.   Now that those plants are actually making power, the oil-burners are also getting high prices as they sell their power. The $75 million this fall was a "capacity"payment--a payment to have oil on-site so the oil-fired capacity is available for dispatch.

ISO-NE has made some comments yesterday about the situation in New England. This grid isn't looking particularly good. This article Energy demand, prices soar as temperatures drop in New England quotes ISO-NE as follows:  

ISO-New England, the region's power grid operator, told transmission and generating companies on Tuesday to halt routine maintenance to free up resources for power exports to other regions if necessary, spokeswoman Marcia Blomberg said.

Some electric power plants have switched to burning oil and coal in New England in response to rising natural gas prices, she said.

(Note: This Energy Demand article by Stephen Singer of AP also appears in the Brattleboro Reformer, but I think it may be behind a paywall there.)

The whole situation on the grid is going to get worse next year when Vermont Yankee goes off-line.  That 27% nuclear will shrink and it is very unlikely that new gas lines will have been installed.  I think that coal and oil will be the new normal for the New England grid in winter. 

What about the renewables?

This post isn't particularly about renewables, but it has been windy, and we have had wind power. "Renewables" are 8% of the fuel mix chart above, and clicking on the "renewables" tag on that chart shows the percentage of the various renewables, as below.  Wood and refuse are 66% of the renewables and wind is 32%.  In other words, wind is about a third of 8% of the demand on the grid, or less than 3%.  And it has been windy!  We are not experiencing a mass of still cold air which is typical of winter. This weather system is described as a "vortex."  For what it's worth, production of power from refuse and wood is relatively fixed-capacity, but the amount of wind varies.  This chart covers a time when the wind power was comparatively high. 

I guess it is time to repeat myself a little. Here's the conclusion:

When Vermont Yankee goes off-line, coal and oil will be an even bigger part of the New Normal on the winter grid in New England. 

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Update: I recommend this NEI blog post about the grid and nuclear energy: Nuclear Fleet Shrugs Off Polar Vortex, and this article in the Hartford Courant about nuclear supplying more power to the grid than any other fuel on Tuesday afternoon when power demand was high.

Reference list about effects of closing Vermont Yankee

My op-ed, Vermont Yankee Closing Will Hurt Vermont,  was based on many references. This list of links helps support it, but no simple list can be a complete set of references on these subjects.

Wind Projects in Vermont

Representative Klein on not-expecting wind projects in Vermont for about ten years
http://vtdigger.org/2013/10/30/vlct-director-argues-local-input-energy-project-permitting/

Natural Gas

ISO says natural gas dependence is key strategic risk
http://www.iso-ne.com/nwsiss/pr/2013/iso_new_england_issues_statement_vy_retirement_final.pdf

FERC Market Assessment of price nationally

https://www.ferc.gov/market-oversight/reports-analyses/mkt-views/2013/10-17-13.pdf

Matt Wald of the NYTimes on natural gas and New England
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/16/business/electricity-costs-up-in-gas-dependent-new-england.html?_r=0

20% electricity price rise expected in Boston this winter

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/mass_roundup/2013/10/national-grid-prices-rising-this-winter.html?page=all

Portland at Forbes on the gas crisis in New England

http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2013/12/05/has-anyone-noticed-new-englands-escalating-energy-crisis/

Winter Reliability with Oil

ISO Winter reliability program---burning oil
http://isonewswire.com/updates/2013/9/18/ferc-accepts-iso-nes-proposed-winter-20132014-reliability-pr.html

Hydro Quebec and more

When HQ exported only half the electricity during a cold snap...
http://yesvy.blogspot.com/2013/01/cold-weather-winners-and-losers-on.html

HQ Planning document:
Note page 6 on 97% of electricity goes to Heritage Pool in Quebec
Note page 32 on plans for profits from exports
http://www.hydroquebec.com/publications/en/strategic_plan/pdf/plan-strategique-2009-2013.pdf

An older blog post about HQ and profits.
HQ charts showing where their profits come from.  This post is old, but HQ puts equivalent charts in every annual report.  Look at the blue charts...also see page 32 of planning document above
http://yesvy.blogspot.com/2010/12/you-better-be-good-to-your-in-state.html#.UnztaChfWec

The great ice storm of 1998
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Ice_Storm_of_1998

Careful review of who-owns-what in the weird structure of Gaz  Metro and HQ. My basic conclusion---ordinary shareholders do not influence these companies.  The government of Quebec controls the actions of these companies.  It's hard to figure out, however.  Good links within the post.
http://vtuncommontaters.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/who-owns-green-mountain-power/

Where Vermont Power Will Come From After Vermont Yankee

Rainfall in U S during ice storm
Does not include rainfall Jan 4 and 5

On Sunday, the Valley News published my op-ed Yankee's Closing Will Hurt Vermont. 

I always enjoy having an op-ed in the my local Sunday paper.  I hope you read it. It's about the probable effects on Vermont when Vermont Yankee closes.

Factors Affecting Vermont Electricity 

As I wrote in the op-ed:

Vermont Yankee’s closing will affect everyone in Vermont. It will make our electricity more expensive, more fossil-fuel based and less reliable.

I explained the factors that will affect our power supply and pricing after Vermont Yankee closes.  Specifically:

• The plant will not be replaced by renewables.  Wind turbine construction in Vermont is practically at a standstill, for example.
• Our power will come from outside Vermont, and be subject to various sorts of interruption, including too few natural gas supply lines, ice storms, and HydroQuebec needing to use its electricity in Quebec during a cold snap.
• The electricity price will follow the grid price of natural gas.  According to FERC, the New England price of natural gas is set to rise substantially (from $6.60 MMBTU to $11.75 MMBTU).  In the rest of the country, the price of natural gas is set to remain stable.
• Grid payments of $75 million to oil-burning plants (the ISO-NE Winter Reliability Program) will be rolled into our electricity costs.

What About the People at Vermont Yankee?

Realtor map of my area
Map shows town boundaries
Dartmouth is in Hanover
My home is in Hartford

Several people asked me why I didn't mention the people at Vermont Yankee, the effect of the plant closing on the local economy, the effect on the state economy, the effect on the state taxes?  

There's a simple reason.  I live about sixty miles north of the plant, and I think people in this area don't care very much about southern Vermont.  People here generally commute across the bridge to New Hampshire, where they work at Dartmouth College, Dartmouth Medical Center, and many high-tech industries spawned by Dartmouth (for example, HyperTherm).  

People here care where their electricity comes from. They care about reliability and about environmental impact.  They care somewhat about their electric bills.  My own feeling is people here don't care that much about what happens to Brattleboro or Vernon. They are insulated from many aspects of the Vermont economy through their jobs in New Hampshire.

Therefore, for my local paper, I wrote about things that affect all of Vermont: where our electricity comes from, how reliable it is, how fossil fuels will be used to produce our electricity, and how expensive electricity may become.

The Op-Ed

For an op-ed, Yankee's Closing Will Hurt Vermont was  very data-dense!  Sometimes I wondered--where was the "opinion" part?  Why did I write it this way?

Still, it was fun to write, and I plan to reprint it on this blog in a week or so.  

However, I always like to have people access the op-ed at the newspaper for a few days before I begin putting it on my own blog.  I hope you enjoy the article.

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P.S.  Just came across an article in a Boston business journal which says that Boston should expect a 20% percent price rise in electricity this winter, for some of the same reasons I discussed for expecting price rises in Vermont.