Wholesale electricity jumped in New York as hot, humid weather from Massachusetts to Maryland prompted households and businesses to crank up their air conditioners.
Spot power in New York City rose to an average of $706.33 a megawatt-hour for the hour ended at 12 p.m., after soaring as high as $1,647.56 at 10:55 a.m., according to the New York Independent System Operator Inc., which manages the state grid. Electricity traded yesterday for delivery in the 10 a.m.-to-noon period today was priced in the $50-range.
The high in New York today may be 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31 Celsius), 14 above normal, with humidity rising to as high as 87 percent, according to AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania. Baltimore’s high will be 12 above normal at 91 degrees.
“Today’s demand is expected to be up with the heat and humidity, but power supplies are more than adequate to meet that demand,” Michael Clendenin, a spokesman for Consolidated Edison Inc. in New York, said in an e-mail. A cold front expected to move in later today and tomorrow will “bring temperatures back to normal by the end of the week,” he said.
Most power for a given day is purchased the previous day in what is known as the day-ahead market. Spot prices can jump when demand exceeds the amount secured in trading a day earlier.
New York Grid
Hourly prices across the New York state grid have been above $100 a megawatt-hour since 7 a.m., when demand climbed with the start of the work day. Electricity use on the grid was 28,009 megawatts as of noon, 14 percent above yesterday’s forecast for that time.
Thunderstorms predicted for later today may result in transmission disruptions and surging prices at around 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., said Brendyn Brooks-Stocking, a Boston-based Northeast power analyst with Genscape Inc., which tracks real-time data at power plants.
Today’s spot-market price gains won’t affect bills for Con Ed customers, according to Clendenin. The utility has more than three million customers in New York City and Westchester County.
The high in Worcester, Massachusetts, may be 83 degrees, 13 above normal.
Spot power across New England was $205.81 a megawatt-hour as of 12:40 p.m., based on gains in Connecticut and Western Massachusetts, compared with the day-ahead price of $43.74 for the grid, according to the region’s grid operator. Electricity on the grid averaged $151.65 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., according to data from ISO New England Inc.
Mid-Atlantic
Demand on the mid-Atlantic grid operated by PJM Interconnection LLC, which spans 13 states from New Jersey to North Carolina and as far west as Illinois, was 120,911 megawatts as of 11:30 a.m., 4.8 percent more than the day-ahead forecast.
Prices have traded from lows that were mostly in the $20s and $30s per megawatt-hour to more than $400 in some of the more densely populated areas where transmission bottlenecks aren’t unusual, according to PJM data.
Public Service Enterprise Group (PEG) (PEG)’s territory in New Jersey averaged $278.58 a megawatt-hour for the hour ended at noon, after rising to a high today of $451.75. Spot power at Baltimore Gas & Electric Co.’s zone in Maryland averaged $314.68 for the same hour after rising as high as $431.58. Day-ahead prices were in the high $40s for both areas.
To contact the reporter on this story: Naureen S. Malik in New York at nmalik28@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net
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