Dive Brief:
- The New England Independent System Operator and New York ISO, which serve a population of about 35 million across seven northeastern states, are projecting healthy margins above expected winter peaks, they said Monday and Friday, respectively
- The New England grid operator said it has about 31 GW of supply capacity available to meet a winter peak forecast of 21.1 GW, under scenarios with below-average temperatures. New York’s winter assessment found almost 30 GW of power resources available to meet a forecasted winter peak demand of 24.2 GW.
- While the grid operators expressed confidence heading into this winter, a broad shift from gas to electric heating is underway and expected to turn the regional grid into a winter-peaking system sometime in the mid-2030s, ISO-NE has previously said. The system reported a summer peak of 26 GW during a June heat wave this year, the highest in more than a decade but still below the region’s all-time peak of 28 GW set in August 2006, it said.
Dive Insight:
2025 marks the first time the ISO-NE has used a new Probabilistic Energy Adequacy Tool to assess energy shortfall risks against a newly-defined threshold. PEAT is designed to quantify potential energy shortfall risk due to extreme weather events, the grid operator said.
“We’re well-prepared heading into winter,” Stephen George, ISO New England’s vice president of system operations and market administration, said in a statement. “Our enhanced forecasts and operating tools give us confidence in the system’s ability to meet electricity demand across New England.”
ISO-NE serves Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont…