Peakers are peaking power plants, also known as peaker plants, that generally run when there is a high demand — known as peak demand — for electricity. New York State has environmental regulations (by DEC) that will limit the use of peaker plants to reduce ozone levels. These are to be phased in between 2023-35. Fewer peakers put the electricity grid at risk during heat waves.
From the annual grid report by New York ISO: www.nyiso.com/documents/20142/2223020/2022-Power-Trends-Repo…
“The CRP concluded that reliability margins will shrink in upcoming years due primarily to the planned unavailability of simple cycle combustion turbines that are impacted by the DEC’s Peaker Rule.”
Figure 17 shows the diminishing reliability margins (page 37). Looking at 95 degree heatwaves, New York City will have razor-thin margins beginning in 2025 before going negative.
“Looking ahead to 2040, the policy for an emissions-free electricity supply will require the development of new technologies. Substantial zero-emission despatchable resources will be required to fully replace fossil generation. Long-duration, dispatchable and emission-free resources will be necessary to maintain reliability and meet the objectives of the CLCPA. Resources with this combination of attributes are not commercially available at this time but will be critical to future grid reliability.”
The nuclear power haters fought long and hard to get the Indian Point nuclear plants shut down. Finally, the pressure applied by the state was too high, and the reactors were shut down. The result, of course, was a jump in fossil fuel consumption in the state.
The 2021 shutdown of the Indian Point nuclear power plant led to near-total dependence on fossil fuels to produce electricity in New York’s energy-hungry downstate region, and surging amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air.
A report issued last month by the New York Independent System Operator, which runs the state’s electric grid, shows that in 2021, 89% of downstate energy came from natural gas and oil, up from 77% the previous year when both of Indian Point’s two reactors were still running.
Yet, for some reason, I still haven’t jumped aboard the Renewables Bandwagon. No mystery to me.
I thought that nuclear power plants weren’t good as peakers. DB2
True, but the loss of those 2000 MW of baseload nuclear capacity reduces the amount of margin in the system. Not having the nukes means the peakers may run more often to keep the grid stable, and the margins are already tight.
The DEC shutting down the gas turbines in NYC is based on the particulate pollution killing people. Granted, blackouts kill people too. Interesting times.
I wonder if anyone has looked at the relative numbers. Of course, a lot would depend upon the assumptions made. At any rate, deaths from a heat wave blackout would generate more media coverage and political pressure, particularly during the second or third blackout.
I wonder if anyone has looked at the relative numbers. Of course, a lot would depend upon the assumptions made. At any rate, deaths from a heat wave blackout would generate more media coverage and political pressure, particularly during the second or third blackout.
The lack of these peakers would cause, at worst, small rotating outages in NYC. The peakers are pollution producing industrial facilities and I’m sure they’re located in minority areas. I would bet blackouts in these areas wouldn’t generate the same outrage as an outage in Manhattan would.
Hopefully NYISO and ConEd will successfully keep the grid reliable without the gas turbines in NYC.
The lack of these peakers would cause, at worst, small rotating outages in NYC. The peakers are pollution producing industrial facilities and I’m sure they’re located in minority areas. I would bet blackouts in these areas wouldn’t generate the same outrage as an outage in Manhattan would.
That seems pretty optimistic. Since it is a grid, I’m not sure that the location of the shortfall would make all that much difference. Perhaps they could try rolling blackouts like they did in California to prevent the system from totally overloading and collapsing.
“Since it is a grid, I’m not sure that the location of the shortfall would make all that much difference.”
It makes a huge difference. Those gas turbines are not there to provide statewide reserve, they are there to provide energy in load pockets when transmission feeding the load pocket or other generation in the load pocket are lost.
DrBob Since it is a grid, I’m not sure that the location of the shortfall would make all that much difference.
When TX went cold turkey off the power grid in February 2021, the VIP stuff like hospitals HAD POWER the entire time. Those NEIGHBORHOODS on the hospital “grid unit”… had power.
This led to some Grid-Unit-Envy.
There were neighborhood streetz (adjacent city blocks) in which one side had no power, while the other side had power.
Anyway, in some fashion, TPTB had a way to choose who got power and who didn’t.
ralph:"When TX went cold turkey off the power grid in February 2021, the VIP stuff like hospitals HAD POWER the entire time. Those NEIGHBORHOODS on the hospital “grid unit”… had power.
This led to some Grid-Unit-Envy.
There were neighborhood streetz (adjacent city blocks) in which one side had no power, while the other side had power.
Anyway, in some fashion, TPTB had a way to choose who got power and who didn’t."
Since then, ONCOR the delivery company has worked to make the ‘hospital power’ grids smaller, meaning adjoining neighborhoods might go dark should there be a repeat of ‘rolling blackouts’.
so those neighborhoods might go dark.
With the hospitals and nursing homes 24/7, that meant the rest of us barely got any power. Here, we got 1 hour of power every 12 hours. They said at first it would be 1 hour on, one off…then 1 hour on/ 2 off. turned out it was 1 hour in 12 we got power for 3 days. Needless to say, everything froze up at 0F type temps. Pool pumps, filters, poorly insulated pipes in walls, celings, attics, outdoor faucets, etc.
Those real time operators in Texas did a tremendous job in an impossible situation. When it became impossible to provide enough electricity to everybody, they turned off (load shed) enough to keep the Texas interconnection from completely collapsing. They made the right decision when given only minutes to make it to do their second worst nightmare (order load shed) in order to avoid their worst nightmare (interconnection wide blackout and days-weeks long restoration.)
New York’s gas/oil peakers should be replaced with batteries. Batteries provide instant power better than gas/oil peakers. In fact New York plans to add 3000 MW to 6000 MW of batteries in 2030. See page 24. Batteries also stabilize the voltage on the grid and no carbon emissions.
New York’s gas/oil peakers should be replaced with batteries.
I think the New York ISO guys know about batteries. At the same time, they wrote:
“Long-duration, dispatchable and emission-free resources will be necessary to maintain reliability and meet the objectives of the CLCPA. Resources with this combination of attributes are not commercially available at this time but will be critical to future grid reliability.”
With various pushes toward electrification demand for electricity is expected to increase. Unfortunately, New York state is moving in the wrong direction with a decrease in generating capacity.
Each year the state (NYISO) issues a report, the Gold Book, on loads and capacity. In this year’s report we read on page 77:
This section provides an overview of significant changes in generating facilities since the 2022 Gold Book was issued, together with a summary of changes in energy generation in the past year. This information is presented in two steps. Reported first is the net change in existing generation from the 2022 Gold Book through March 15, 2022, which is a decrease of 342.4 MW 9 for the summer. Second, any additional generation changes from March 15, 2023 until the summer of 2023 are reported, which is a decrease of 283.9 MW, excluding changes in Special Case Resources and Net Purchases. This results in a total capacity decrease of 626.3 MW from the summer of 2022 to the summer of 2023. https://www.nyiso.com/documents/20142/2226333/2023-Gold-Book-Public.pdf/c079fc6b-514f-b28d-60e2-256546600214
