Washington, 30 October (Argus) — Electricity demand in New York City, Long Island and New Jersey slumped over the past 24 hours as Hurricane Sandy crippled regional grids.
Demand in the Long Island Zone of the New York Independent System Operator (ISO) at 8pm ET yesterday was roughly a third of normal, at 847MW. By comparison, Manhattan loads were reduced by around one-fifth.
Demand forecasts by the ISO, based on historical trends and not recent events, suggest Long Island load at the same time tonight should be 2,752MW.
The ability of utility repair crews to return so much damaged equipment to service in waterlogged conditions appears questionable.
Local utility Con Edison proactively shut off service to parts of Brooklyn and lower Manhattan yesterday before sea waters could flood underground transmission and distribution systems.
More than 650,000 customers in the service territory of Con Ed lost power in the largest storm-related outage in the utility's history.
Loads on Long Island this morning were a quarter of yesterday's levels, at 531MW at 8am.
Under normal conditions at the same time tomorrow morning, loads should be 2293MW. Day-to- day Manhattan loads dropped by 28pc this morning.
The mid-atlantic region of the PJM Interconnect saw loads decline just as hard.
Demand at 8pm was down 16pc from the day before, and PJM's forecasts suggest that consumption will stay at that level for the evening peak tonight.
On 1 November, however, loads after rush hour would normally be more than 50pc higher.
Temperatures that day are forecast to decline slightly in Philadelphia, the largest population center in PJM's mid-atlantic region.
Public Service Electric & Gas, the largest utility in New Jersey and a major load-serving entity in PJM, also said the storm was the worst in its history. More than 1.2 million customers were affected by a combination of high winds and floods of at least 10 substations by rivers in low-lying counties.
Utility holding company FirstEnergy reported more than 1.6 million customers in five states in PJM are without power. About 60pc of those are served by subsidiary Jersey Central Power & Light. The others are in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland.
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