High tech means high energy, what is already, according to the Information Technology Association of America, a world market that tops the $2 trillion mark, as countries everywhere continue to embrace information and communications technology. But what about the energy it takes to produce all this technology, specifically electricity? Is there enough to go around to deal with this growing strain?
Ellen Foley, spokesperson for the Independent System Operator New England, which manages the region’s 330 power generating stations, said electricity use here grew between 3 and 4 percent over the last two years. That’s double what had been an average rate of growth over the last decade of between 1.5 and 2 percent.
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But despite the heavy load, “people shouldn’t worry,” Foley said, because although there’s growing demand, “we are predicting we will have sufficient supply,” even during the peak summer months.
Meanwhile, federal officials like Energy Secretary Bill Richardson have predicted power failures this summer, raising doubts about the reliability of several regional electricity grids, including New England’s.
U.S. consumption of electricity has risen 35 percent in the last 10 years, while newly generated electric power has increased by only 18 percent, causing several utilities in some parts of the country to be stretched to the limit come summer.
To deal with this more power plants are being built, Foley said, over six new plants since last summer alone, which has added 1,200 megawatts to ISO New England’s system. She said aside from the current stated capacity of 25,000 megawatts there is also a reserve, and since the all-time high reported usage that was reached on July 6, 1999 was 22,544 megawatts, the system has enough of a cushion.
Robert Seega, vice president and director of public affairs at Narragansett Electric, said despite load growth over the last several years there have been some offsets, including great-er energy efficiency in computers and small appliances and the overall transition of the economy from a manufacturing load to a service-oriented load.
Electric companies also offer Demand Side Management programs that “actually encourage customers to use less of our product.” Devising such programs is not only good news for environmentalists since “there’s less energy being generated” but it allows the company “to earn certain incentives” depending on number of kilowatts saved.
Still, the U.S. economy is becoming increasingly electrified, as evidenced by the ongoing growth of e-commerce. Since 1950, the national consumption of electricity has grown more than eleven-fold, and new uses are increasing demand every day.
”Right now it’s anecdotal,” Foley said, but experts believe increased usage might be related to the “growing use of office equipment” such as computers, faxes, printers, etc. as well as increased use of central air conditioning and appliances.
”On every desk there’s a PC, that’s load,” Seega said, adding that the company is putting in an additional substation at Point and Eddy Streets in Providence with about 125 megawatts of capacity to deal with the increased usage.
According to the Edison Electric Institute, sales growth of 3 percent was achieved by the investor-owned electric utility industry in 1998, as total output hit historical highs of 3,219 GWh of power. In comparison, the total number of customers increased only 0.7 percent.
Average electricity usage per customer increased by 2.2 percent between 1997 and 1998, significantly outpacing the previous year’s increase of .5 percent.
“The way we see it the generation is keeping pace with demand,” Foley said, “not to say [that] on a hot, humid day we wouldn’t ask the public to help.”
During a heat wave in early May and on June 27 ISO New England had to do just that, using a public notification system modeled after National Weather Service advisories that ask customers to voluntarily conserve electricity. On June 24 the Seabrook nuclear power plant in New Hampshire tripped offline and was off the following day when demand peaked in the early afternoon.
The system has two levels of appeals – power watch – which these were, and power warning, which is a more urgent appeal and is only used when electricity supplies are or are expected to be extremely tight and there is concern that electric companies might have to disconnect certain customers as a means of reducing demand on the grid.
