Amid day 5 of a heat wave expected to last through Thursday, local New York electricity generators had been dealing with the increased demand(to help power air-conditioners) until, as Bloomberg reports, the agency that oversees New York’s power system issued issued an alert in advance of a thunderstorm that cut the amount of electricity allowed to be carried across transmission lines feeding the city. This sparked a massive surge in New York electricity prices from $40/MwH to over $1000/MwH.
As Bloomberg details, the grid operator is “worried about lightning hitting between Albany and NYC” and knocking out import lines, said Ben Chamberlain, a Boston-based analyst with Genscape. “More local generation would help, but I think they’re running almost everything already.”
Blue, sunny skies over Manhattan quickly gave way to dark clouds about 4 p.m., followed quickly by sheets of rain, hail and thunder.
The grid operator’s thunderstorm alert issued two hours earlier came after electricity imports from Canada plunged. The New York ISO reported it had four large reserve pickups for seven minutes starting at 1:38 p.m., which Chamberlain said can signal that there was a sudden supply outage.
Power flows on Hydro-Quebec’s Chateauguay high-voltage transmission line that feeds New York dropped to 300 megawatts at 2:10 p.m. from 1,500 megawatts 1:35 p.m., grid and Genscape data show. A spokeswoman for Hydro-Quebec couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.
We can’t help but look at that chart and wonder just how fragile and marginal the power grid really is.
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