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New England electrical grid should do OK during freeze snap, operator says

ISO New England, which oversees New England's electrical grid, says the grid is in good shape for Friday and Saturday.

ISO says the shortness of the sub-zero freeze - about a day - coupled with the fact that the brunt of it will be on Saturday, when fewer people are at work, will help limit the impact.

Also, while the largest part of New England's electricity is generated with natural gas, the region has a large amount of fuel oil, which many electricity generators can switch to, should something happen to the pipelines that provide part of our natural gas. On Christmas Eve, New England approached an electricity shortfall due in part to frozen gas pipelines leading to New England.

Even with increased demand for electricity, the system has enough reserve capacity to generate more should demand spike - or a plant go offline, ISO says.

As of Thursday morning, consumer demand for electricity from the regional grid is expected to peak at just above 19,000 MW on Friday and just over 18,000 MW on Saturday. This would represent the highest demand so far this winter, but remain below the ISO’s seasonal forecast for peak conditions, in part because of the cold weather falling on days that typically see less consumer demand. Total electricity use is expected to reach 379 gigawatt-hours (GWh) on Friday and 371 GWh on Saturday, which would be the highest values observed this winter.

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Comments

You watching, Texas?

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Blackout and their $0.11/kWh over our $0.21/kWh.

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seem to like to occur during weather extremes when it stops being a luxury and starts being an necessity to have electrical power...

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I don't. This reminds me of a member of my wife's family who keeps talking about how much she loves living in Alabama because there's no state income tax. Yeah...but the catch is, then you have to live in Alabama.

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