Power watch urges conservation

BANGOR – New England consumed a record amount of electricity Wednesday, forcing the overseers of the region’s power grid to ask residences and businesses to conserve electricity because the system is under tremendous strain.

A power watch, which is a request for voluntary conservation, will be in place again today. But even though that request has been made, New England should set another power-use record – the third in three days. Usage topped 25,700 megawatts at 3 p.m. Wednesday, up from the record-setting amount of 25,033 megawatts Tuesday.

The previous high was 25,022 megawatts, set Aug. 9, 2001.

High temperatures and humidity levels, expected today for the fourth day in a row, are increasing the likelihood that a power generator, transmitter or transformer could go down, said Ellen Foley, spokeswoman for ISO-New England, the governing board that oversees the region’s grid. More than 2,000 megawatts of power generated in New England was unavailable for use Wednesday because some generators, including a major one in northeast Massachusetts, were down for undisclosed reasons, she said.

“Outages on the system are not atypical this time of year,” Foley said. “All generation that can be available is available.”

New England generators have the ability to produce almost 27,000 megawatts of electricity. On Wednesday, however, ISO had to ask New York to send about 200 megawatts to help meet the demand.

Today, New York is unlikely to have the extra power because of high usage there, Foley said.

“They’re weathering the situation, toe,” she said.

In Maine, however, which generates more power than it uses, the same call for conservation was made even though there was an abundance of electricity.

CMP spokesman David Allen said the transmission tie line that connects Maine’s grid to the rest of New England was full Wednesday, and a bottleneck of electricity was formed in the southern part of the state. The line can hold 1,400 megawatts of electricity at a time.

“Everything we could push south, we were pushing south,” Allen said.

Foley said Maine was included in the conservation call to ease the stress on generators and transmission lines that are caused by high temperatures and increased demand. Too much strain could cause part of Maine’s system to go down too, she said.

After Wednesday’s conservation request, “we did see a dampening of demand,” Foley said.

“So it was effective,” she said.

During a power watch, ISO New England suggests that consumers raise air-conditioning thermostats by a few degrees; turn off unneeded lights and appliances and unnecessary office equipment; shut off air conditioners when leaving home for extended periods; and put off until evening laundry and other chores requiring electricity.