Nicole cuts power to more than 363,000 in Florida; service being restored quickly

Hurricane Nicole made landfall early Nov. 10 near Vero Beach, Florida, packing 75 mph winds and cutting power to more than 363,000 customers as of 10 am ET, with a forecast to move into the Gulf of Mexico then through Georgia overnight, sapping power and gas prices.

Utilities had stationed about 18,000 technicians across Florida to restore service as quickly as possible, and as of 2:30 ET, PowerOutage.US listed fewer than 300,000 customers offline, almost all in the northern two-thirds of the state.

After making landfall around 3 am ET Nov. 10, the center of the storm had reached the Gulf Coast about 45 miles north of Tampa, Florida, around 1 pm ET with 45 mph winds and was moving northwest at 15 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. The storm is expected to re-enter Florida overnight near Tallahassee, move into Georgia overnight and then through the southeastern US on Nov. 11.

"Nicole is expected to weaken to a depression over Georgia tonight, and then it is expected to merge with a frontal boundary over the Mid-Atlantic United States by Friday night," the NHC said Nov. 10.

Restoration efforts

Florida Power & Light, which serves most of the Atlantic coastline in the storm's path, had as many as 341,000 customers knocked offline by the storm, but had restored service to about 178,000 as of 8 am ET Nov. 10.

Noting that this was the first hurricane to hit Florida in November since 1985, FPL had stationed about 13,000 technicians from 16 states around its service territory to restore service as soon as it is safe to do so.

"Nicole continues to impact the state, but our restoration is well underway," said FPL President and CEO Eric Silagy. "During the height of the storm in the southern part of Florida, when crews were unable to travel safely, our smart grid technology was working to restore power remotely. Now, in the areas where winds are below 35 mph, our teams are out in full force, conducting critical damage assessments and restoring power."

Duke Energy, which had the second-largest number of customers offline in Florida, also has customers at its home base in the Carolinas, and therefore advised customers in the storm's path to prepare for "high winds, flooding and widespread outages."

"Nicole is a large storm with very heavy rains and gusty winds, a combination that could potentially bring down trees and cause power outages in some areas," said Jason Hollifield, Duke Energy's Carolinas storm director. "We have thousands of line and tree workers across the Carolinas ready to respond and have worked to strengthen the grid and add smart technologies that can help reduce the impacts of tropical storms on customers."

Energy market impacts

The US Energy Information Administration forecast load in the North American Electric Reliability's Florida Reliability Coordinating Council footprint to average less than 24.6 GW on Nov. 10, down 1 GW, 4.1%, from Nov. 9 and down 6.4 GW, 20.5%, from the previous Thursday.

The FRCC is NERC's reliability entity for all of the state except the Panhandle, which is another reliability entity footprint.

S&P Global Commodity Insights assessed Florida day-ahead on-peak bilateral power at $49.75/MWh for Nov. 10 delivery, down $3, or 5.7%, from Nov. 9 and down $9.25, 31.2%, from the previous Thursday. The Intercontinental Exchange showed no trading activity in Southeast bilateral markets on Nov. 10 for Nov. 11 delivery.

S&P Global assessed Florida Gas Transmission Zone 3 gas at $3.17/MMBtu for delivery Nov. 10, down 51 cents, 13.9%, from Nov. 9 and down $1.44, 31.2%, from the previous Thursday. In Nov. 10 trading, FGT Zone 3 gas traded around $4.60/MMBtu for delivery over the long Veterans Day holiday weekend. S&P Global expects gas flows to average about 26.5 Bcf/d during those three days, up about 506 MMcf/d from previous periods.