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