Tuesday August 7 4:39 PM ET

New York Declares Power Emergency By Scott DiSavino

NEW YORK (Reuters) - On the hottest day of the year, New York urged residents to conserve electricity amid warnings that soaring demand and problems at a few local power plants had cut deeply into the grid's available power supplies.

Millions of New York City workers were told over their office public address systems that the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), which manages the New York power system, had declared an energy emergency and Consolidated Edison Inc., the city's main electric utility, called for power load reductions until 7 p.m. Eastern Time.

Although it is not the first energy emergency for the Big Apple, it is the first time the NYISO has activated a new emergency demand reduction program in New York City that calls on major businesses and building managers to voluntarily throttle back their power usage.

``With the entire Northeast setting new power demand records, we are being proactive in calling on the emergency demand reduction program now,'' NYISO spokesman Steve Sullivan told Reuters.

Sullivan explained the NYISO could not afford to wait until later in the day to activate the program because it takes about two hours to take effect.

Under the program, building managers will shut one out of every four elevators, dim lobby lighting, turn up air conditioner thermostats and shut nonessential equipment.

The program, which covers more than 300 million square feet of office space, or about 75 percent of the total office space in New York City, is expected to slash power demand by 160 megawatts (MW), enough electricity to power 160,000 homes.

Sullivan said there are enough resources available to meet the heavy air conditioning demand right now, but warned the situation could change quickly if any power plants were forced to shut down.

Several plants were already reported to be struggling along at less than full capacity due to boiler tube leaks.

``If those units take a turn for the worse, we could be in trouble,'' Sullivan said.

PLEAS FOR CONSERVATION

So far, the NYISO has asked the state's utilities to initiate energy conservation programs, prompting public pleas to douse unneeded lights, turn up the thermostats on air conditioners, and avoid using major appliances before sundown.

These simple steps can save enough energy to avoid utilities having to ``shed load'', a move triggered when electricity demand threatens to outpace supply.

Some of those load management actions include asking large industrial customers, who agree in advance to buy electricity at a discount, to shut their operations.

They can also include asking local and state governments to send nonessential employees home, requesting commercial power customers like shopping malls to cut power or switch on their own generators, and cutting power sales to neighboring grids.

If these steps fail to stop the load from growing to dangerous levels, Sullivan said the NYISO may be forced to ask utilities to slightly reduce voltage, called a ``brownout.''

Sullivan emphasized the NYISO considered brownouts a highly unlikely last resort and certainly did not anticipate a need to order rolling blackouts, where circuits to entire neighborhoods are shut off for about an hour to avoid collapsing the system.

NO RELIEF FROM ONTARIO OR THE WEATHER

Sullivan said New York could not to turn its Canadian neighbor Ontario for extra power because the province's own loads were running about 1,000 MW above forecasts.

Sullivan said the load in New York was 30,400 MW, which broke the all-time record of 30,290 MW set on July 6, 1999.

One megawatt provides enough power for about 1,000 homes.

Temperatures in New York were expected to slip from a high of 97 degrees Fahrenheit today to 91 degrees on Wednesday.

``Tomorrow the weather should ease just slightly, so loads should be down. But temperatures will be back up there on Thursday,'' Sullivan said, referring to forecasts that show temperatures rising again on Thursday.

``It's a good thing we tried the emergency demand reduction program today. We can figure out how much load it really cuts. We may need to use (the program) again on Thursday,'' Sullivan said. ``We do not have a lot of power to spare.''

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001