Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 21, 1994 TAG: 9401210124
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: AUDUBON, PA. LENGTH: Medium
Then he realized: The supply fell short - far short - of the demand.
If McLaughlin, the shift supervisor, and the three other overnight workers didn't act fast, more than 21 million people in more than five states would get up in the morning and encounter shortages of electricity.
So, at 3 a.m. Wednesday, the power pool people got on the phones.
McLaughlin woke up colleagues at home, including his boss and the president of the system, for instructions.
The pool workers closed deals brokered earlier - 200 megawatts from New York, some from New England, some from Ontario. They checked the power plants in the pool to make sure all were pumping out as much energy as they could.
After lining up the additional energy, they found that they still couldn't meet the morning demand.
Not since the heat wave of 1971 had such drastic measures been needed.
The 11 utility companies that make up PJM, which stands for Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland, were told to ration their electrical output. That meant shutting off customers just about the time they'd be blow-drying their hair or waiting for the toast to pop up.
"It was turn it off for half an hour or an hour or risk having no electricity for days," said Bruce Balmat, manager of the performance department.
So the utilities complied. They used "rolling blackouts." They turned off power to industrial users that had agreed to interruption in their supply in case of an emergency. They asked residential customers to reduce their use of power. The blackouts affected more than 1 million customers in the three states; plus Delaware and the District of Columbia, and Virginia Power customers in the commonwealth.
Roanoke-based Appalachian Power Co. asked its customers in Virginia and West Virginia to reduce their electrical use and averted blackouts despite all-time high power demands.
PJM had prepared all it could for the subzero temperatures. On a daily basis, the company buys and sells power on behalf of the 11 power companies in the cooperative.
But because the cold front stretched from Maine to Georgia and west to Illinois, with record low temperatures everywhere, few states had surplus energy. The neighboring ones that normally are tapped for extra energy also were running low.
In addition, the cold weather had created other problems. Local utilities could not use natural pipeline gas to fuel their power plants and help out PJM because residential demand was so high. Oil deliveries by truck or barge were delayed because of frozen roads and rivers. Coal piles were frozen solid.
Because of warming temperatures and the conservation measures, the emergency probably will be lifted by mid-morning today, said Phil Harris, PJM's president. Appalachian Power lifted its conservation order on Thursday.
by CNB