ISO New England Five Minute Fuel Generation (Unofficial) for Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022

This page displays a few graphs of the grid status for a very cold day in the Northeast. It highlights the high usage of Oil generation due to limits of Natural Gas generation and the reduced Imports into New England from Canada and New York state due to very high demand in Quebec.

  1. Temperature in Fahrenheit at 7 am: Montreal -15, Burlington, VT -14, Portland, ME +1, Boston +1. Of note is the very low level of 'Net Imp-Exp' (354 MW) at 5:50 am due to heavy demand in Quebec -- limiting exports to New England.
  2. 'Solar' is Utility scale Solar. BTM (Behind The Meter) Solar is roof-top solar, etc and reduces the System Load.
  3. The gap between the 'System Load' and the 'top of the stack' is satisfied by Net Imports ('Net Imp-Exp') from Canada and New York State. The Net Imports drop to 354 MW at 5:50 AM -- unusually low.
  4. 'Hydro' here is NOT HydroQuebec, which is included in 'Net Imp-Exp'.
  5. The large increases in Hydro around 7 am and late afternoon are due to the generation from two Pumped Storage reservoirs in Massachusetts -- originally built close to two now retired nuclear plants.
  6. The Price shown is the Real Time Market (RTM) price. Also of importance in trading is the Day Ahead Market (DAM) price -- not shown. Within the ISO NE market there are the Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) between buyers (distribution utilities) and sellers (merchant generators). It's not clear to me how these transactions are accounted for in the 'market.'
  7. At 9 am, the Millstone 2 nuclear unit in Connecticut started ramping down with the eventual reduction of 869 MW.

Comments by Warren Van Wyck 01/24/22

These pie charts display fuel type percentages at midnight and 8:24 am. Note reduced percentage of Net Imports.

This graph displays the reduced imports from Quebec (HQ_P1_P2) and New Brunswick (SALBRYNB) on Saturday morning.

This graph displays the reduced imports from northern New York AC (ROSETON) on Saturday morning. At certain times New England is EXPORTING to New York.

This graph displays load in Quebec on Saturday morning. Around 7 am it was the highest. Graph from https://www.hydroquebec.com/transenergie/en/

HQ Demand

This graph displays grid status in Quebec on Saturday morning 10 am. Of note is the very unusual status that Quebec is a net importer of 466 MW power due to large imports from Ontario and New York state. I estimate that at 7 am the imports would have been even greater since HQ Hydro generation capacity is about 38.5 GW. Graph from an earlier screen shot from https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/CA-QC

Quebec Grid Status

Disclaimer: This page is neither approved, sanctioned, nor endorsed by ISO New England Inc. 01/28/2022 WVW