Jan 28, 2014 4 min read

How acutely arctic has it been?

PJM Interconnection LLC, operator of the electricity grid, serves 61 million people in 13 states, including most of Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1927 – 87 years ago.

“If you look at the 10 days of the highest use of electricity in our history, seven have occurred this month,” said Ray Dotter, spokesman for the Valley Forge-based company. “Again, we’re talking about our history. That shows how cold it’s been recently and how high the (electricity) demand has been.

“What is happening is out of the ordinary. The cold has been extreme for an extremely long period, which stresses the grid and the equipment used.

“Usually, it’s one or two days – not weeks – when it’s this cold and the demands are high.”

That is why PJM, on a moderate Monday, asked consumers to conserve electricity during peak usage times Tuesday.

Still another forecast of bitter cold was imminent, prompting the request to limit consumption from 6 to 10 a.m. and 5 to 9 p.m. That request was not extended to today.

This winter of seemingly everyone’s discontent continues unabated, with temperatures well below freezing – too often well below zero – and snow well above the ankles. Whether that confounded groundhog sees his shadow Sunday doesn’t matter. A lot of people are uncomfortable, physically and emotionally, because of the demands that weather conditions place on them.

They include grid operators and energy providers. Concerns about supply shortages, which force energy prices to rise, have frosted consumers, legislators and others, particularly in this region.

State Sen. Tim Solobay, D-Canonsburg, and Rep. Pam Snyder, D-Jefferson, have protested the October closures of two coal-fired power stations, Mitchell in Union Township and Hatfield’s Ferry near Carmichaels, Greene County. Three coal-fired plants closed statewide last year, and more are scheduled to shut.

FirstEnergy, the parent company, shut them down because of the cost of bring both into compliance with strict future Environmental Protection Agency standards and the abundance of natural gas to generate electricity.

Solobay said Tuesday that because the new EPA standards won’t take effect for another year or so, FirstEnergy could have kept Mitchell and Hatfield’s Ferry online at least through next summer.

“I said that October was just ahead of the winter season and about eight months from summer,” he said. “I said, ‘You’re taking away 2,000 megawatts of power and you’re not concerned about blackouts or brownouts?’ They said no. Then we had our first cold spell and (PJM) issued concerns (Jan. 7). Then we had a second cold spell and (PJM) asked to exceed a cap on natural gas.”

On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Coal Alliance called for legislative hearings to investigate reasons for the supply shortages.

The alliance said PJM last week asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for emergency approval to exceed a $1,000 per megawatt-hour price cap on power. The average wholesale price in the PJM region last year was $42 per megawatt-hour, according to the Energy Information Administration.

John Pippy, chief executive officer of the coal alliance, said: “Extreme weather can cause energy prices to become volatile, but coal-fired electricity is much less likely to be subject to severe price swings. Coal as an energy source brings a strong element of stability to the power supply and, therefore, to wholesale power prices.”

As of mid-afternoon Tuesday, the chill apparently had not had a significant impact – energy-wise – on Washington and Greene counties.

Todd Meyers, spokesman for Greensburg-based West Penn Power, which supplies power to the two counties, said there were no outages in Washington and only seven out of 20,249 customers in Greene.

Meyers adopted a glass half-full philosophy Tuesday.

“One good thing is it will begin to warm up, if you want to call it ‘warm up,’ on Thursday,” Meyers said. “It was 30 last week and I felt like putting on shorts and sitting in a beach chair.”