Power Problem Here to Stay, Experts Predict
07/31/2002
By JAYSON BLAIR
The New York Times

Fires in electrical transformers like those that have knocked out power around the city in the past few weeks are likely to become more common as utility systems show their age, energy industry analysts say.

The problems with the systems - built during a time of much lower demand for power, long before the average consumer's home was packed with computers, air-conditioners and other power-draining equipment - have become more evident in recent weeks as a number of overtaxed transformers have caught fire and failed.

More than 60,000 homes and businesses lost power on July 20 after a transformer fire in Manhattan, and 14,000 were without electricity late Monday and early yesterday after fires at a transformer shut down generators at a Queens power plant.

F. Michael Valocchi, an energy consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said that New Yorkers should become used to such equipment problems.

"Everyone worries that there is not enough electrical power generation, but under the current deregulated system in New York State there is no incentive for anyone in the power business to upgrade and improve their very old equipment," Mr. Valocchi said yesterday.

Reliant Energy, which operates the power plant in Astoria, Queens, where the generators failed, warned yesterday afternoon that power might not be fully restored for several days in pockets of Whitestone, College Point, Bayside, Flushing, Douglaston and Jamaica. Among the businesses affected was The New York Times, which lost power at its printing plant in College Point.

Toby Usnik, a Times spokesman, said thousands of copies of the newspaper were delayed and about 200,000 customers did not receive three sections: the World Business section, Science Times and The Arts. Mr. Usnik said home-delivery customers who did not receive those sections would receive them in today's paper.

Yesterday, temperatures reached a high of 95 in Central Park at 2:59 p.m., three degrees lower than the high for July 30, set in 1988. Humidity levels dropped slightly throughout the day, providing some relief.

Temperatures across the region were similar to Manhattan's, with Newark reaching 96 degrees and Bridgeport, Conn., reaching about 93.

"Everyone wants to assume it's something extraordinary, but it is not uncommon for New York City to be in the 90's in the summer," said Fred Gadomski, a meteorology professor at Penn State.

The New York State Independent System Operator, which maintains the power grid statewide, reported usage yesterday of more than 29,000 megawatts across the state during the peak demand period, in the late afternoon. The single-day record is 30,983 megawatts, set on Aug. 9, 2001.

In New York City, Con Ed officials said, demand did not approach record highs.

After the transformer fire, each of the electrical generators at the 1,254-megawatt Reliant plant were shut down. Two of the four generators were restored yesterday morning and officials were scrambling to get another generator back on line.

A fourth generator was damaged in the transformer fire and will not be back in service for several days.

Con Ed officials said that about 500 customers remained without power yesterday afternoon.

Con Ed, the Long Island Power Authority and the New York Independent System Operator all warned consumers to conserve energy to help prevent another power failure.

Long Island Power Authority officials are transferring several hundred megawatts of power to Con Ed to make up for some of the Astoria fire losses.

But LIPA had its own problems yesterday. LIPA officials reported 20,000 customers affected by scattered power failures since Monday, most of them attributed to problems caused by some combination of high temperatures and high usage. In one case, a power line was knocked down, cutting power to in two apartment buildings in Rockaway, Queens, that housed 2,200 people.

Several experts said yesterday that while getting new plants into New York City is a major issue, there are also many concerns about distribution equipment, like the transformers involved in the fires. Transformers are used to change the voltage currents before or after local transmission or distribution.

"The distribution system is aging," said Alan Victor, president of TransGas Energy, a company in the electrical power generation business. "It's one of the older distribution systems in the country and it is a system that has experienced tremendous growth over the years."

Some energy experts say that the state's energy deregulation, which involved encouraging companies like Con Ed to sell their power plants and just stay in the local distribution business, has made it harder to hold any one company accountable for such problems. "There are now these unregulated companies that are generating the power and getting it to Con Ed, which is no longer obligated, like it used to be, to build and maintain generating systems," said Andrew Gansberg, a managing partner who handles utilities issues in the Albany office of Nixon Peabody, a law firm. "Extreme weather conditions always show us the warts in the system."

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