The Northeast Power Coordinating Council does not anticipate any major reliability issues this summer, in part because of depressed demand resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Hot, muggy weather, resulting in the heavy use of air conditioning, remains the single largest factor affecting peak electricity demand during the summer months,” NPCC CEO said Edward Schwerdt in a media call this week announcing the organization’s summer Reliability Assessment.

Sagging Demand Linked to COVID-19

Demand in the regional entity’s territory is expected to peak at 104,156 MW, slightly higher than last year’s forecasted peak of 103,548 MW. (See NPCC Sees Lower Summer Peak for 2019.) The growth is primarily because of the return of a large industrial customer in Québec. Despite a net decrease of 700 MW in NPCC’s overall installed capacity from last year, the RE is projecting a spare operable capacity (capacity over and above reserve requirements) during the summer of between 12,700 MW and nearly 21,000 MW.

As with other parts of North America, utilities in the Northeast have seen significant changes in customer behavior across their service areas since many states and cities began ordering residents to stay at home because of the pandemic. Over April 6-10, average electric consumption in New York City during the 8 a.m. hour was 18% lower than expected, while forecasters for ISO-NE have seen declines of 3 to 5% and usage patterns resembling those of snow days. Ontario also reports overall demand “beginning to trend low” and load forecasting models in Québec have consistently overestimated morning and afternoon peaks since March 23.

Philip Fedora, NPCC’s assistant vice president of reliability services, described the drop in demand as an unplanned but useful cushion that can help protect against “adverse reliability impacts related to COVID-19 from unavailability or inoperability of key facilities” resulting from factors such as workforce disruptions, interruptions to fuel supply and deferred maintenance.

“I would like to emphasize that all NPCC areas have plans to address potential [pandemic-related] transmission system operational impacts during this summer,” he added. Preparations are also underway for such severe system conditions as reductions in the ability to import power from neighboring regions, transmission constraints and reductions in demand response programs.

Healthy Regional Forecasts

The report included a snapshot of regional changes in generation across NPCC’s footprint since last summer and projected peaks this year.

• NYISO predicts peak demand of 32,296 MW, 86 MW lower than last year’s forecast. Despite a drop in generating capacity of 978 MW because of the retirement of several generating facilities, the state forecasts installed capacity of 38,745 MW during the peak week, with spare operable capacity of 1,711 MW.
• ISO-NE is expecting peak demand of 25,158 MW against installed capacity of 31,115 MW, with spare operable capacity of 3,197 MW. Limited amounts of maintenance and construction are planned for natural gas pipelines in the region, but these are not expected to result in significant deliverability issues.
• Ontario has added 1,499 MW of generating resources composed of natural gas, wind and solar facilities since last summer, for a net gain of 1,461 MW. The summer peak demand forecast for the province’s Independent Electricity System Operator is 22,194 MW, 89 MW higher than last year. Spare operable capacity during peak weak is projected at 1,558 MW.
• Québec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, which are winter-peaking, project weekly spare operable capacity margins for the summer of at least 5,300 MW and 1,100 MW, respectively. Peak load for Québec is predicted at 21,635 MW, up 630 MW from last year, while peak load for the Maritimes is anticipated at 3,370 MW, from 3,255 MW last year.

Planning for New Pandemic Challenges

While Schwerdt and Fedora see the region as well positioned for the summer, they acknowledged that the COVID-19 outbreak has the potential to introduce new complications. For instance, NERC recently warned of increased cybersecurity risks from an expanded remote workforce, along with the likelihood of distributed energy resources serving a larger portion of overall load than anticipated by grid planners, leading to challenges with predicting demand. (See “Cybersecurity, DER Risks Highlighted,” PPE, Testing Top Coronavirus Concerns for NERC.)

Fedora emphasized that the RE and its associated entities are aware of these issues and have considered them in their planning. But while these concerns are legitimate, they can be addressed without losing sight of fundamental yearly challenges.

“They are used to operating a transmission system under low-load conditions, it’s just perhaps that these conditions are going to occur more frequently than before,” Fedora said. “We can’t predict the future, but we can look at cause and effect, and we looked at several of these scenarios. … We don’t think there is a real liability from a resource adequacy and transmission adequacy point of view for this summer.”