By: Naureen S. Malik |
Spot wholesale electricity gained in New York City after the Indian Point 3 nuclear reactor was shut for planned work while demand topped forecasts.
Entergy Corp. (ETR:US) manually shut the reactor, about 27 miles (43 kilometers) north of New York City, to troubleshoot an issue with a steam generator valve on the non-nuclear side of the plant, said Jerry Nappi, a spokesman for the plant.
Power demand in Manhattan and its four neighboring boroughs was 8,382 megawatts as of 10:35 a.m., 1.9 percent higher than day-ahead forecast for the hour, according to the New York Independent System Operator Inc.’s website.
Spot prices for New York City rose $4.84, or 13 percent, to average $42.39 a megawatt-hour during the hour ended at 11 a.m. from the same time on July 26, grid data compiled by Bloomberg showed.
Indian Point 3 was operating at full power yesterday, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission data show. The unit’s summer capacity is 1,031 megawatts, according to the Energy Information Administration.
An increased flow of power into New York after the reactor went offline is adding to transmission bottlenecks in northern New Jersey, bolstering prices on parts of the grid operated by PJM Interconnection LLC, said Natalia Mestvirishvili, senior power market analyst at Genscape Inc. in Boston.
PJM Power
Net shipments of electricity from PJM to the New York state grid was 739 megawatts at 11:03 a.m., up from about 277 megawatts at the same time yesterday, New York ISO data show.
The 230-kilovolt line from Cedar Grove to Roseland started experienced congestion from 9:45 a.m. to 11 a.m., causing prices in northern New Jersey to briefly top $133, PJM data show.
While a parallel line has been down since June 6, “the loss of Indian Point 3 just north of New York triggered the congestion with more flows out to New York,” Mestvirishvili said.
Spot power at PJM’s Eastern hub, which includes prices for Newark and Philadelphia and Virginia, was down $1.31, or 3.5 percent, at $35.80 a megawatt-hour during the hour ended at 11 a.m. from the same time July 26.
