The New York Power Authority Thursday called an electricity emergency from 11-2:30 p.m. and ordered interruptible customer load reductions of 16.2 Mw.
The program ended 2� hr early after temperatures did not reach forecasted highs, a spokesman said.
NYPA had previously asked program participants to "shed load" once before this summer�on June 27, when temperatures in the city climbed into the high 80s. Participants in the program include the Bank of New York, Chase Manhattan Bank, Citibank, J.P. Morgan, the New York City government, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.
They achieve the cuts and earn money by using their own back-up power generators or by implementing energy-saving measures such as turning off or dimming nonessential lighting and adjusting air conditioning settings, NYPA said.
Under the load management program, customers receive $40/kw of electricity they commit to save, when called on by NYPA, during the high-use months from June-September. NYPA provides one business day's notice to program participants that a cutback request could be coming.
New York is one of the areas vulnerable to power outages this summer, according to the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) in its annual assessment of summer generating and transmission capacity. Experts say additional generating capacity is badly needed now in the Northeast. The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) predicted the power industries in the US Northeast and parts of the Southwest would be vulnerable to power outages this summer (OGJ Online, May 24, 2000).