The operator of New England’s power
grid may have caused ?unnecessary alarm? by warning of the
potential for blackouts that never occurred during a January cold
snap, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said.
The agency’s final report on the electric and gas
industries’ behavior during the extreme weather of Jan. 14 to 16
otherwise reiterated its April 1 findings that there was no
market manipulation.
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The warnings by ISO-New England, the grid operator, were
contained in two press releases, resulting in widespread news
coverage, said Ted Gerarden, an attorney with FERC’s Office of
Market Oversight and Investigations, in an interview. The
releases followed record winter power use.
?Public service announcements may have led to helpful
conservation, but blackout warning may have caused unnecessary
alarm,? the FERC report said.
?Given the extreme volatility of system conditions, we felt
it prudent to advise the public of the steps and precautionary
measures that were being taken to protect reliability,? said
Erin O’Brien, a spokeswoman for the Holyoke, Mass.-based
grid.
The report’s conclusions also supported a May 11 study by
ISO-New England that the high number of shutdowns by natural gas-
fired generators was largely because of equipment problems or the
inability to secure economical fuel. Most generators that ran
their plants operated unprofitably, the grid study said.
Bloomberg News
