HOLYOKE, Mass. – Here’s an upside to the relentless wet weather and chilly temperatures: it’s keeping electricity bills lower than usual.
New England residents and businesses used 12 percent less electricity in June compared with the same month a year earlier, ISO New England Inc., the company that oversees the regional power grid, reported yesterday.
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New Englanders consumed 9.9 million megawatt-hours of electricity last month, 1.4 million megawatt-hours fewer than they did in June 2008. It was the lowest total monthly consumption for June since 1998, according to ISO New England. (A megawatt-hour is equal to about one hour of electricity consumption by 1,000 homes in New England, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.)
Although ISO New England attributed some of the fall in demand to the recession, the grid operator said the major cause was the absence of summer-like weather.
“With June’s cold, damp weather, most New Englanders probably didn’t even bother bringing up the air conditioner from the basement or turning on the central if they have it,” Vamsi Chadalavada, ISO New England’s senior vice president and chief operating officer, said in a statement. “It simply wasn’t needed on most days in June.”
The comparison is striking. In 2008, the average temperature in New England during the second week of June was 83.9 degrees. This year, the average was 64.6 degrees, nearly 20 degrees cooler, according to ISO.
The result was a decline in average daily peak demand for the week of nearly 27 percent, from 21,538 megawatts last year to 15,817 megawatts this year.
“Demand for electricity peaks in the summer in New England, with consumption driven largely by weather and air-conditioning use, so when residents and businesses don’t turn on the A/C, the effect can be seen in lower demand,” Chadalavada said.
New England’s electric grid experienced its highest demand for all of 2008 on June 10 of last year, when demand peaked at 26,111 megawatts thanks to an early heat wave that sent temperatures into the 90s across the region, ISO said.
By contrast, this year’s highest daily electricity demand occurred on June 26, and it peaked at 18,468 megawatts, nearly 30 percent less than the monthly peak last year. (ISO New England’s all-time record for peak demand was 28,130 megawatts on Aug. 2, 2006, when the average temperature in the region reached 95 degrees.)
Additional information is available at ISO-NE.com.
