By William Opalka  

A repeat of last winter’s polar vortex should not imperil the nation’s power system, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. said last week. Lessons learned from last year’s extreme weather and subsequent operational reviews have left the U.S. better prepared compared to early 2014, NERC said in its 2014-2015 Winter Reliability Assessment.

“Last year, the system bent, it twisted, but it didn’t break,” John Moura, NERC’s director of reliability assessments, said in a press briefing Friday. He said various scenario analyses of weather, and fuel resource and plant availability, were run to recreate January’s polar vortex under current operational conditions.

NERC concluded that “all areas appear to have sufficient resources,” he said. Moura noted familiar themes: an increased reliance on natural gas could cause fuel constraints and limit the availability of some plants during cold snaps.

While New England is “at the forefront of concern” for areas with heavy reliance on gas, he said significant progress has been made in addressing that need through ISO-NE’s winter reliability program. (See ISO-NE in Precarious Position for Winter.)

Moura said that coal delivery and supplies have become concerns in the Midwest and elsewhere that require monitoring, but he characterized it as isolated to relatively few plants and a low risk to grid reliability.

New PJM Demand Record

Hints of the coming winter hit PJM Nov. 18 when unseasonably low temperatures pushed the RTO beyond its previous November demand record. The preliminary peak demand was 121,987 MW at 7 p.m. Real-time prices topped $200/MWh throughout much of PJM at 6 p.m., with the Dayton Power and Light zone highest at $287. The previous November record, set in 2013, was 114,699 MW.

New England got some good news last week from the latest National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 90-day forecast, which said that slightly higher temperatures than previously forecasted are expected in the region. Chances for slightly drier weather have increased along the Great Lakes and in the Ohio Valley. However, the probability of above-normal levels of precipitation along the eastern seaboard up to southern New England has increased.

FERC Query on RTO Fuel Assurance

Meanwhile, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Nov. 20 ordered RTOs and ISOs to file reports within 90 days on their efforts to ensure generators have adequate fuel (AD13-7, AD14-8).

This topic has been on FERC’s radar since at least 2013 but became more acute after last winter, as natural gas generators faced price spikes and an inability to obtain fuel. The high prices meant dual-fuel capable plants in New York and New England burned unexpectedly large amounts of oil.