Road To New England -- Fascinating -- January 3, 2018

Updates

January 3, 2018: see first comment --

Only 3 plants remain in New England that burn coal, a 440 Mw, a 400 Mw, and a 150 Mw.

Looking closely at the charts, it would appear only the 150 Mw is producing (Schiller plant, NH), or one of the others at reduced capacity (unlikely).

Speculation, but the Bridgeport plant in Connecticut (400 Mw), almost 50 years old and slated to retire, ran out of coal or broke down.

Merrimack plant in NH (440 Mw) is third coal burner.

Wouldn't surprise me at all if they either ran out of coal or had operational issues, aka breakdowns.

When these older plants are seldom used and due to be retired (the 2 NH plants were recently sold) maintaining tip top condition is difficult.

More oil burning seems in store with cold temperatures.

Original Post

This is something I had not seen before -- it's likely it's happened before but I simply missed it. Note in the graphic below that coal dropped abruptly and precipitously just as demand and price of electricity was at early morning highs.

When something drops that precipitously and abruptly, there must be an explanation.

Also, which we've seen every morning, even as electricity demand is going up, renewable energy is actually dropping.

Oil is the go-to source for generating electricity in New England when it absolutely, positively needs it.

Update: At 8:07 a.m. electricity demand started going back up. Renewable continued to trend down; coal did not move at all, nor did natural gas. The only energy source that increased was oil.