WITH TEMPERATURES RISING, the New England power grid returned to normal on Wednesday as wholesale prices fell and generators returned to producing electricity using natural gas instead of oil.
At 4:37 p.m. on Wednesday, the fuel mix of the region’s power generators was 53 percent natural gas, 25 percent nuclear, 8 percent renewables, 7 percent coal, 5 percent hydro, and less than 1 percent oil, according to real-time data available on the grid operator’s website.
At 5 p.m. last Thursday, the fuel mix was 27 percent oil, 24 percent natural gas, 22 percent nuclear, 12 percent renewables, 11 percent hydro, and 6 percent coal.
The locational marginal price of electricity at a central point in Massachusetts also fell dramatically. The price averaged $167.23 per megawatt hour during the cold snap between December 23 and January 7. The price fell to an average of $135 per megawatt hour on January 9 and then plummeted on Wednesday to an average of $69 per megawatt hour through two-thirds of the day.
On January 4, ISO-New England, the operator of the regional power grid, said high demand for natural gas for heating was causing natural gas pipeline constraints that are resulting in high natural gas prices. The grid operator said the high natural gas prices in the region prompted the switch to oil and coal to generate electricity and pushed up wholesale electricity prices.
The recent cold spell renewed the debate about whether New England needs additional natural gas pipeline capacity. ISO-New England may shed some light on that question soon. The power grid operator had been working on a fuel security study since late 2016 and planned to release it on October 24, 2017.
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About Bruce Mohl
Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.
About Bruce Mohl
Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.
The release was postponed when the Trump administration announced an initiative to provide additional financial support for nuclear and coal-fired power plants. Regulators
rejected the initiative on Monday, but ISO-New England has yet to announce when its fuel security study will be released.
Few details have been released about the study, but it appears to focus on whether New England’s heavy reliance on natural gas for generating electricity could eventually put the grid at risk without the construction of additional pipeline capacity. The study is expected to analyze fuel security for the winter of 2024-2025 “because challenges to power system reliability are expected to be manageable in the near term.”
