US' SPP declares energy emergency alert, seeks conservation in extreme cold weather

Houston — Southwest Power Pool has declared an Energy Emergency Alert Level 1 and is seeking energy conservation through Feb. 16 as extreme cold weather hits the regions.

SPP members and market participants are requested to conserve energy beginning at midnight CT Feb. 15 and for the following 48 hours to mitigate the risk of more widespread and longer-lasting outages.

"The declaration of conservation operations signaled to SPP's member company utility operators that they should operate conservatively to mitigate the risk of worsening operations," according to an SPP news release. "To bolster system reliability, SPP may require generating units to be available for upcoming operating days with notification for commitment issued multiple days in advance."

SPP took these steps in preparation for the extreme weather conditions already experienced and expected over the next couple of days, the release showed.

An EEA1 signals that SPP foresees, or is experiencing conditions, where all available resources are scheduled to meet firm load obligations and that SPP may be unable to sustain its required contingency reserves.

"SPP continues to experience extreme cold weather conditions with this winter storm event and is concerned about the availability of generation resources amid unprecedented high peak demand projections," according to the news release.

SPP forecast peakload at 43.565 GW on Feb. 14, 44.995 GW Feb. 15 and 45.255 GW on Feb. 16 before easing through the rest of the week. The winter peakload record is 43.584 GW reached on Jan. 17, 2018.

The cold weather and indication of tight supply on increased demand caused wholesale power prices to spike.

SPP South Hub real-time prices were above $2,750/MWh around 5:50 ppm CT on Feb. 14. North Hub was near $2,275/MWh, SPP data showed. On-peak day-ahead locational marginal prices have averaged in the $40s/MWh so far this month, up nearly 90% from January and 125% higher year on year.

SPP's average hourly real-time prices locational marginal price across all settlement locations reached $1,362/MWh at 7 am CT on Feb. 8, while the average marginal energy cost for the system reached $1,377/MWh, which was the second highest average hourly real-time price since the Integrated Marketplace launched in 2014.

SPP declared a period of conservative operations for the entire balancing authority on Feb. 9 and later issued a resource alert for its entire balancing authority footprint until further notice due to high loads, severe cold weather and wind forecast uncertainty.

An EEA1 is the first of three levels of energy emergency. An EEA2 would be triggered if SPP could no longer meet expected energy requirements and was considered energy deficient, or if SPP foresaw or had taken actions up to, but excluding the interruption of firm load commitments, according to SPP. At this point SPP would have utilized its operating reserves such that it would be carrying reserves below the required minimum and would have requested assistance through its reserve sharing group.

Neighboring grids

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas is asking consumers and businesses to reduce electricity on Feb. 14 and 15.

"We are experiencing record-breaking electric demand due to the extreme cold temperatures that have gripped Texas," ERCOT president and CEO Bill Magness said in a news release.

"At the same time, we are dealing with higher-than-normal generation outages due to frozen wind turbines and limited natural gas supplies available to generating units. We are asking Texans to take some simple, safe steps to lower their energy use during this time."

ERCOT forecast peakload about 68.659 GW on Feb. 14, 74.582 GW Feb. 15 and 76.044 GW on Feb. 16. The winter peak demand record is 65.915 GW set on Jan. 17, 2018 between 7 and 8 am.

The Midcontinent Independent System Operator last week declared cold weather alert, conservative operations and a south region capacity advisory. Late Feb. 14, a maximum generation emergency alert was issued for its South Region from 7am ET Feb. 15 through 11 pm.

MISO also sent an information message to members to make sure all update their offers related to load modifying resources and notify MISO of any generation changes related to fuel supply issues, de-rates, or forced outages as soon as possible.

"Neighboring area's SPP, ERCOT, TVA and PJM are all in declaration level conditions as well, so help from our neighbors is likely to be limited at best," according to the MISO message to members.

MISO forecast peakload around 96.18 GW on Feb. 14, 102.58 GW Feb. 15 and 104.73 GW on Feb. 16.

The PJM Interconnection issued cold weather alerts for Feb.14 and 15. PJM forecast peakload around 107.514 GW on Feb. 14, 114.803 GW Feb. 15, 110.183 GW on Feb. 16, 116.451 GW on Feb. 17 and 112.601 GW on Feb. 18.