The Oil-filled Grid: Communications

Early January Nor'Easter
Wikimedia, NOAA

Oil on the Grid

About two weeks ago, I wrote a blog post The Northeast Grid and the Oil. This described our early-January polar weather, and how Northeastern power plants could not get enough natural gas in the below-zero weather. Homes had priority for natural gas delivery, and plants that could use oil switched from natural gas to oil.

As a matter of fact, the oil stocks were also getting depleted.

I want to update the cold-snap story with some other posts. The general public doesn't read my blog, so I did some outreach. I wrote an op-ed about the grid for my local paper, the Valley News.  The op-ed was printed on the front page of the Sunday Perspective section on January 28, and has been shared around 200 times on Facebook. Oil Kept the Power Grid Running in Recent Cold Snap.

Why were people so interested in the article?  Because a secure electric supply is an important part of personal safety during extremely cold weather.  Most home furnaces require electricity to spread the warmth into the household. People who have chosen heat pumps are also dependent on reliable electricity.

Nuclear plants and pipelines and controversy, oh my!

There were more articles on the situation, of course, not just mine.  Actually, I think there were too few articles.  Nearly running out of oil when you can't get gas---this can be a major deal during severe winter weather! I will point out some interesting articles, and I hope that people who read this will send links to a few more.

Rod Adams post described the "sobering statements" made by the grid operator about oil supply, and the weird statements made by nuclear opponents.  (Pilgrim should have shut down before the storm? Really?) He shares some graphics from ISO-NE on the weak performance of solar panels during the days of the crisis.  He also discusses Pilgrim going off-line, and whether that could have been prevented. As usual, his post has an active and informed stream of comments. Performance of the New England power grid during extreme cold Dec 25-Jan 8, at Atomic Insights blog.

Meanwhile, over at Forbes, several columnists were commenting on the situation.
Jude Clemente wrote What Happens When You Don't Build Natural Gas Pipeline
David Blackman wrote Amid Deep Freeze, New Englanders Can 'Thank' N.Y. Gov Cuomo For Their High Energy Bills
Christopher Helman wrote Natural Gas Demand Hits Record As Cold Bomb Targets Northeast

Over WBUR radio, Bruce Gellerman has a fascinating seven minute segment on how the power plants actually operated during the cold snap, including an interview with a manager of a peaker plant that runs about 800 hours a year. Do We Need More Natural Gas Pipelines?

There's a lot of controversy built into all these articles. The role of nuclear.  The need (or not-need) for more natural gas pipelines. Will new emissions regulations make handling the next cold snap much harder? Did renewables make a great contribution during the cold snap?  Or not?

The Electric Supply

A steady electric supply is hugely important to winter safety. In my opinion, it should not be such a subject of controversy.  My hope is that  reason will prevail, and we will have the nuclear plants, pipelines and energy security that we need.

Backwards to the Future: Carbon and Pollution Rise in New England

Pollution on the rise

On November 19, Heather Hunt, executive director of NESCOE, gave a presentation to the Northeastern Section meeting of the American Nuclear Society.   The presentation was titled New England Infrastructure Challenges.  Howard Shaffer and I drove down together, though it is always a bit of a struggle to drive to Boston and back again in an evening.  

In this case, the drive was well worth it.  Hunt's presentation about  proposed transmission lines, gas pipelines, and gas pipeline constraints was excellent.  As a matter of fact, you can see it for yourself. The presentation is posted online here: 

http://nescoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/NuclearSociety_19Nov2015.pdf

I was especially struck by one slide, showing the trends for carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). After years of lower pollution in New England, pollution trends from electricity production have reversed. Pollution from the electricity sector is on the rise. 

Slide by NESCOE, Based on EPA data
Courtesy NESCOE

Why is Pollution Rising?

The title of the talk was New England Infrastructure Challenges.  That is also the answer to the question.

For a while, pollution was falling as gas made more power and coal made less.  But then the gas constraints hit: there just isn't enough gas available for electricity production in the winter.  At that point, the grid operator pulled out all the stops to meet the demand. Coal, diesel, every fossil fuel and its brother were called into play. Some of the fossil fuel plants were called up ad hoc to meet demand, and some were part of the grid operators Winter Reliability Program, which depends on burning oil.  I describe this in a post from January 2014.

The Cold Truth on the New England Grid This Week, a High-Carbon Fuel Mix.

More pipelines for gas, and more transmission lines to Hydro Quebec, could alleviate this gas-crunch problem.  But such things take a long time to build.

However, it takes a very short time to decide to shut a nuclear plant!  Vermont Yankee and Pilgrim will no longer make clean energy for the New England grid.  Therefore, the demand for oil-fired and coal-fired and diesel-fired generation will rise during cold snaps, until all the new infrastructure can be built.

If the new infrastructure is actually built.  The number of people who will lie down in front of "fracked-gas"pipeline construction rivals the number of people who hate nuclear.  As a matter of fact, they are often the same people. I recognize some of them at meetings.

New England is going backwards to the future.

About NESCOE and about the Consumer Liaison Group of the grid operator

NESCOE  is the New England States Committee on Electricity. The important word is States.  This is a small committee, with members appointed by the Governors of the New England States. It keeps track of electricity issues as the states would perceive them.  I think NESCOE is a very good idea. Without it, the states would be individual and alone in trying to understand the implications of ISO-NE decisions. (ISO-NE is the grid operator.)  Heather Hunt is the Executive Director of NESCOE.  I appreciate her courtesy in sending me the slide above.

As it happens, I will see Hunt again tomorrow.  I am a member of the Coordinating Committee of the Consumer Liaison Group (CLG) for ISO-NE.  We are meeting in Boston tomorrow, and Hunt will be on the panel at our meeting.

Attendance is free: I encourage you to attend.  The subject is Transmission Planning in New England.    I share the announcement below, and you can find more information at the CLG web page for the meeting.

Support for Ginna: Write a Comment to New York State

Ginna Station
from NRC site

To the New York State Department of Public Service:

I want to express my strong support for keeping Ginna Station operating.

I worked in energy research for many years. My background includes renewables, gas-fired plants, and nuclear plants. I have worked to improve them all. I live in Vermont, and  I am now a member of the Coordinating Committee of the Consumer Liaison Group (CLG)  for ISO-NE.  I must stress that the opinions I express here are MY OWN: they are NOT official opinions of the Committee.  I mention the CLG to explain that I have some expertise in grid issues. The purpose of the CLG is to advise the grid operator in support of the electricity consumer.

Right now, the New England grid makes almost 50% of its electricity with natural gas.  This has been a problem for grid stability, especially in the winter.  ISO-NE has had two “Winter Reliability Programs” that basically paid dual-fired generators to keep oil on hand. They used the oil during the times in deep winter when natural gas was not available to power plants.  These reliability programs have cost $70-$80 million a year, and FERC wants them to stop, because they are targeted, not market-based.  FERC may be right, but the programs have kept the lights on in New England during the winter.  These programs mainly bought oil, though LNG was also fed into our grid (though not as part of the Winter Reliability Program). Other grids are encountering the same issues, as they become more dependent on natural gas.


Ginna Station and other nuclear stations make low-carbon electricity and increase the diversity of the New York grid.  Please value that diversity! Grid diversity contributes to system reliability and price stability.  Without the nuclear plants, the grid will move more and more to natural gas, which emits greenhouse gases.  Also, putting all your eggs in one basket (having only one predominant fuel supplier for the grid) is a very bad idea. Supply crunches and price rises are not only likely: they happen, and they will happen more if the grid goes mostly to natural gas. The amount of “subsidy” given to Ginna to keep it operating will be only a small amount, compared to the amount you can expect to pay for winter reliability programs or if there is a price rise for natural gas.

For the sake of your consumers, keep the grid diverse and keep Ginna (and other nuclear plants) operating. For the sake of the planet (greenhouse gases), keep Ginna (and other nuclear plants) operating.

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Who Digs Deeper, and For What Do They Dig?

A friend on Facebook alerted me to the opportunity to support continued operation of Ginna Station in New York.  Thank you, Michael Mann!

I just posted the comment above on the New York State Department of Public Service site. The Department is asking for comments on a case to allow a "reliability support services agreement" for Ginna Station. This agreement would give Ginna slightly increased pay on the grid, in return for the reliability and support that the plant gives to the grid.

An upstate New York newspaper has an article headlined Regulators examining plan to prop up Ginna plant.   The first sentence says that consumers will have to "dig deeper in their pockets" to keep the Ginna plant operating.

Old steam locomotive
Best I could do for "steam"
Wikipedia

This really annoyed me.  When our local grid reached into our pockets for a $70 million dollar Winter Reliability Program, and used that money to buy oil.….hey, nobody asked me if I wanted to dig deeper for imported oil! But keeping a nuclear plant going and getting away from such oil-based emergency programs: that is the sort of thing that leads to a catchy headline about "propping up. "

Sometimes you can almost see the steam coming out of my ears.

Don't Just Steam, Take Action

Write your short letter about Ginna here:
http://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/Comments/PublicComments.aspx?MatterCaseNo=14-E-0270

It doesn't have to be long, but make sure it is personal.  Make sure it is clear that the letter is your personal opinion.  If you live in New York State, that's a great reason to have a pro-Ginna opinion.  If you live elsewhere, compare the issue to something in your area: coal plants shutting down, electricity price rises, whatever is going on.  Make it personal.

As an example of what NOT to write, look at the existing letter collection.
http://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/MatterManagement/CaseMaster.aspx?MatterCaseNo=14-E-0270
Approximately a thousand letters all say the same thing.  They all start:

Dear Secretary Burgess:
I am writing to oppose a consumer subsidy for the Ginna nuclear power reactor, owned by Exelon.
Ginna is one of the oldest nuclear reactors in the U.S. Propping up this uncompetitive reactor …..

Not very convincing!

When you have finished your note to the New York regulators, please consider also sending it as a comment on this post. The more examples of letters that we have, the easier it will be for the next person to post a letter to the New York State regulators.

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.

Vermont Yankee's Closing Will Hurt Vermont

The Plant Will Close

On Aug. 27, Entergy announced that Vermont Yankee would be shuttered in the fall or 2014, when its current fuel load is finished producing power.

Entergy’s decision elicited a variety of reactions. Some regarded this as a great victory and were practically dancing in the streets. I was among those who were upset and depressed by the news. But I suspect that most people were somewhere in the middle. They thought, well, Vermont isn’t using Vermont Yankee power anyway, so it shouldn’t make much of a difference.

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

Vermont utilities are using Vermont Yankee power now. They’re not officially buying Vermont Yankee power, but “using” power and “buying” power are different. Power use has to do with physical structure — where power plants, transmission lines and users are located. “Buying” power is about power contracts. A utility can choose to “buy” power from far away, but it will continue to use the power from the local generators. For example, when Green Mountain Power bought power from Seabrook instead of from Vermont Yankee, no power lines needed to be constructed. When a major supplier of regional power is lost, it must be replaced, regardless of who’s buying it.

So when Vermont Yankee closes, people in Vermont will have to get actual power from other sources. Can they get this power? The short answer is yes. Vermont Electric Power Co. (VELCO) manages the state transmission systems. VELCO was concerned that Vermont Yankee might close. Between 2010 and 2013, it invested $30 million in new lines and substations to bring replacement electricity to Vermont.

The Replacement Power

What will the new power sources be? Despite the Vermont Comprehensive Plan, very little will come from renewable sources. Building renewables is a slow, expensive, land-intensive job. Vermont Yankee generates 620 megawatts of power and is well-connected to the grid. In contrast, the Lowell Mountain wind project produces 64 MW and has difficulty getting on the grid. Rep. Tony Klein, a strong advocate of wind energy, said recently that he expects no more wind farms to be built in Vermont for another 10 to 15 years.

When Vermont Yankee goes off-line, Vermont will get its power from outside Vermont: either power supplied by the regional grid, ISO-NE, or hydro-power from Canada. With Yankee closing, much of the power on the grid, especially the spot market power, will be gas-fired and its price is due to go up. Power supplied under contract by HydroQuebec follows that spot price. Before, when gas prices went up, Vermont Yankee could underbid the gas prices, and supply many megawatt-hours at a lower price than gas. But without Vermont Yankee, gas prices will determine the price of almost everything on the grid.

Natural Gas and Some Oil

Industrial Gas Turbine

Our local grid power is already overdependent on natural gas. Right now, 52 percent of the power on the grid is produced from natural gas, and it will be a higher percentage when Vermont Yankee closes. ISO-NE considers gas dependence a “key strategic risk” for New England. The area is vulnerable to supply disruptions and price changes for this commodity.

Let’s start with supply disruptions. We had a natural gas supply crisis during the January 2013 cold snap. Although many in New England heat their homes with natural gas, the limited gas lines serving the region make for an inadequate supply. In cold weather, when domestic demand for gas spikes, those customers receive priority, and the power plants can’t get enough gas. During that cold snap, the grid would attempt to summon the help of a gas-burning power plant, and the plant would answer: “Sorry. Can’t go online. No gas.”

This year, ISO-NE started a “Winter Reliability Program” to address this problem — by using oil. ISO-NE has set aside $75 million to keep (mostly) oil-burning plants at the ready. That’s right, the grid is paying $75 million to have oil-burning plants keep oil onsite. (This is a “capacity” payment; the plants will be paid separately when they actual make power.) ISO-NE is ensuring reliability, but at a high dollar cost and a high cost in fossil-fuel use.

Without Vermont Yankee, more power will come from gas plants, but they will still be supplied by the same set of pipelines. Unless new pipelines are built quickly, an unlikely event, it will take less of a cold snap to activate the “we can’t get gas for our power plant” situation. In that case, more oil will be needed for back-up.

Price also matters, and once again, the problem is a lack of pipelines. Fracking has made a lot of gas available, but New England’s access to it is limited. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which tracks national supply and demand, published a market assessment in October that reported that gas prices are relatively stable in most of the country, except in New England. In other regions, gas prices charged last winter and for futures contracts written on the coming winter are around $4 per MMBTU (1 million BTUs). In New England, natural gas prices last year were $6.60 MMBTU, but the futures price for the winter of 2014 is soaring to $11.75. Electricity prices in this area are also expected to rise, since electricity prices customarily track gas prices.

Canadian Hydro--only a very partial solution

What about getting more power from hydro plants in Canada? This will work … partially. Depending on how much electricity we import, new transmission lines may well be needed. Some of these lines are already being planned. We should also note that Canadian power is unlikely to shield us from price rises on the grid. Under the new HydroQuebec contracts signed around 2012, the price HydroQuebec charges will fluctuate; it will move according to the market price on the grid, which itself follows natural gas prices.

Ice Storm of 1998

In this case, we will be actually moving more electricity from Canada, not just writing contracts. Electricity carried long distances is also liable to disruptions. In 1998, an ice storm devastated HydroQuebec’s power lines, causing widespread, lengthy power outages. This could happen again, but let’s look at a more recent and more mundane supply disruption.

During that same cold snap last January, HydroQuebec exported only about half of the usual amount of electricity to the U.S. Why did it cut back just when the power was most needed?

Quebec law requires HydroQuebec to supply inexpensive electricity to “legacy” customers within the province. The needs of those customers must be met, and at a retail price of around 3 cents per kWh. Therefore, many people in Quebec heat with electricity. In a cold snap, the Quebec heaters go on, and HydroQuebec has less power to send to us. HydroQuebec hates this, but has no choice.

Cold Weather and Reliability

Even with Vermont Yankee running, Vermont and New England were overly dependent on natural gas. Without Vermont Yankee, the problems will get worse,. Our dependence on natural gas and on Canada sets us up for a perfect storm of increased power prices — and it won’t take a monster storm to trigger it. Cold weather itself will do a fine job.

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This op-ed originally appeared in the Valley News on November 17, and appeared in the Ethan Allen Institute newsletter in December.

A reference list for this post is Reference list for effects of closing Vermont Yankee.