Dive Brief:
- Last week's heat wave along the East Coast sent power prices significantly higher in a few areas, Platts reports, with some markets approaching their highest levels this year.
- In the New York ISO's Long Island Zone K, real-time prices spiked to $225/MWh on Thursday morning. Both ISO New England and PJM Interconnection saw demand spikes, but price levels remained moderate.
- Despite the price spikes, New York ISO said it is leaning on efficiency to reduce peak demand. Efficiency is expected to reduce peak demand on New York’s bulk power system by 255 megawatts in 2016 and by more than 1,800 MW in 2026.
Dive Insight:
In one of the first tests of the 2016 heating season, East Coast markets saw demand spikes, but relatively few areas where prices soared.
New York's Long Island Zone K was one of those, Platts reports, exceeding $200/MWh in the morning of July 7, while other NYISO zones remained around $40/MWh. The grid operator reported Thursday demand around 28 GW, about 1.5 GW higher than expected.
Despite summer spikes, NYISO officials say they expect overall demand to stagnate as energy efficiency helps reduce demand. But there will still be a need for system upgrades, even as the state adds distributed resources and reimagines how its utility system functions.
Last week the ISO issued its new Power Trends report, warning significant investments in the transmission system will be needed to reach the state's renewables goal, 50% by 2050. Coupled with significant increases in both gas and renewable energy generation, the ISO said it will have ample capacity to serve energy demand through the next decade. NYISO has added over 11.6 GW of generation since 2000, most of it natural gas-fired.
