State regulators believe as much as three new power plants’ worth of energy for Marylanders is out there — just not all in one place.
Facing the prospect of rolling blackouts or brownouts by summer 2011, the state Public Service Commission last week ordered Maryland’s utilities to begin examining alternative ways to lower demand for energy during summer’s hottest days.
Recommended Stories
The PSC order charges the state’s utilities with launching programs like Baltimore Gas and Electric’s Peak Rewards program. The program, begun earlier this year, offers residential ratepayers the option of installing a special thermostat which allows the utility to control a home’s air conditioning during hot summer days when demand on the electricity grid is highest. In return, the customer receives an incentive credit on their bill.
State regulators hope programs like Peak Rewards, known in the electricity industry as “demand response,” may help push off the predicted blackouts and buy time for new transmission lines into the region to come online.
In its order last week, the PSC said the Peak Rewards program alone has created 495 megawatts of demand response for the 2011-2012 planning year-roughly equal to building a new power plant. PSC staff believe another 1,200 megawatts of power may be available with more programs like Peak Rewards.
“The order represents an important first step in identifying potentially available resources to fill the potential gap in 2011 and 2012,” PSC Chairman Douglas Nazarian said. “We started with demand response and distributed generation because we think there are resources there that are as yet untapped.”
Distributed generation refers to the emergency backup generators scattered around the area at hospitals, universities and government buildings. In its order, PSC commissioners told their staff to reach out to those institutions about possibly removing themselves from the power grid during peak demand hours, and operating on their backup generators. The plan could lower peak demand for electricity by another 400 megawatts, according to PSC staff.
Participating institutions would have to be repaid for the fuel to run their generators, and older generators may have environmental issues that limit their operation. A report on the issue by PSC staff in conjunction with other state agencies is due March 30.
In the PSC order, commission executive secretary Terry Romine emphasized the need to take action.
“The year 2011 sounds a long way off, but in the world of electricity it’s not,” Romine wrote. “A failure to address 2011’s or 2012’s shortfalls now is, for all intents and purposes, a conscious decision not to act.”
