(fixes typo)

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New England leans heavily on oil-fired power plants

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PJM generation outages surge

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Spot electricity prices rise to several hundred dollars

per MWH

By Tim McLaughlin

BOSTON, Jan 25 (Reuters) -

Power plant outages surged along the eastern United States

on Sunday as constricted natural gas supplies and frigid

temperatures cut the electricity output of the region's

generation fleet.

The PJM Interconnection, the largest U.S. regional grid

that serves 67 million people in the East and mid-Atlantic,

reported nearly 21 gigawatts of generation outages, with most of

that capacity being forced offline. Those outages represented

about ‌16% of PJM's Sunday afternoon demand of 127.4 GW.

Without native supplies of natural gas, the eastern

seaboard relies on a pipeline network that is historically

constricted during extended bouts of frigid weather, said Pieter

Mul, a ​grid expert and associate partner at PA Consulting's

energy and utilities practice.

PJM's outages are higher than the grid planned, Mul added,

saying there is ‍less flexibility in the PJM system than a few

years ago because of power plant retirements and a ⁠surge in

demand from data centers.

PJM's territory ⁠also is hurt by bottlenecks in its

transmission system of high-voltage power lines, hindering the

the transfer from west to east. For example, cheap power in

Illinois on Sunday - sometimes dipping into negative prices

because ‌of abundant wind energy - could not be moved to help out

other section of ​PJM.

As snow and sleet hit the major cities of Boston, New York,

Philadelphia and Washington DC, the power grid also lost access

to solar power from an increase in cloud cover.

Meanwhile, power prices in PJM and the electric grids for

New York ⁠and New England surged between $400 and $700 per MWh

Sunday afternoon, grid operators ‍reported. The increases

reflected demand ​that continues to top grid operator forecasts.

ISO New England, which serves a six-state region that

includes Boston and Hartford, reported about 20.2 gigawatts of

demand at 1:45 p.m. EDT, or greater than a project peak load of

19.5 GW expected later in the day.

With ‍constricted natural gas access, nearly 40% of the New

England grid's output came from oil-fired power plants. Natural

gas, usually the grid's main source of fuel, accounted for just

30% of the grid's fuel source for power plants.

But as Mul noted, New England supply of diesel fuel oil can

be depleted and not easily re-supplied during hazardous winter

conditions. ISO New England's surplus capacity dropped to about

1.1 GW, down from earlier estimates of several gigawatts.

Earlier on Sunday, ISO New England issued an "abnormal

conditions" alert asking power plant operators not to schedule

any maintenance or anything else that would affect the grid's

reliability.

Outside of Washington ​D.C., real-time wholesale ‍electricity

prices topped $1,800 per MWh early Sunday in Dominion Energy's ( D )

Virginia territory, up from $200 per MWh on Saturday morning.

Virginia houses the biggest cluster of data centers in the

world, which are used to power things like artificial

intelligence and have been responsible for rising power ​demand

and prices in swaths of the country.

The demand spike began late Saturday night, according to

data from PJM as Winter Storm Fern swept across parts of the

country.

PJM predicts an all-time winter demand record on Tuesday,

partly due to data center electricity needs. Dominion has said

extended frigid temperatures this week, along with heavy snow,

have the potential to be one of the largest winter events to

affect the utility's operations.

PJM predicts demand at 147.2 gigawatts, which would beat the

current record winter electricity demand of 143.7 GW set in

January 2025.

Spot wholesale electricity prices across the U.S. have been

elevated throughout the weekend as regional grids strain to meet

surging demand. When demand is higher than the ​forecasts,

utilities can be forced to pay elevated spot prices for

electricity to meet the demands of their residential and

business customers.

Regional grids feed their power into the local distribution

lines that bring electricity to homes and businesses. Those

local power lines are showing disruptions, with nearly 1 million

customers without power on Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us,

with more than 300,000 in Tennessee and more than ‍100,000 each

in Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana. Other states affected

included Kentucky, Georgia, Virginia and Alabama.