Rains came, temperatures fell and power supply conditions returned to normal Tuesday evening (5/21) across the area served by Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. and throughout the Northeast.
"We thank our customers for the actions they took over the past two days to protect regional power supplies," said John F. Sipics, PP&L's general manager for Power Systems Support.
He said customers heeded PP&L's requests to use power wisely and helped the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnection (PJM) get through a period of tight power supply throughout the Northeast.
Tuesday afternoon, the PJM power pool asked regional utilities to curtail power to customers on "interruptible" rates. PP&L asked 66 industrial customers to curtail power use. Those customers have contractual agreements with PP&L giving them a lower price for electric service year-round in exchange for agreeing to cut power use when requested during periods of high demand.
PP&L ended the curtailment at about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday after a cold front moved through the area, reducing temperature, humidity level and electricity demand.
Neither PP&L nor the regional power pool came close to setting summer electricity use records during this early heat wave.
Customer demand for electricity over the past two days was considerably higher than normal for May. The regional power pool did not have the electricity supply available that it would have during the summer. Most utilities schedule power plant overhauls during the spring, which is typically a time of low electricity demand, to prepare for expected high demand in the summer months.
"The power pool did not have to take additional measures, which could have had a direct effect on service to residential customers, because all of our customers cooperated with the request to use energy wisely," Sipics said.
PP&L serves 1.2 million customers in 29 counties of eastern and central Pennsylvania. PP&L is one of 11 PJM-member utilities. PJM coordinates the distribution of electricity to more than 22 million customers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and Washington, D.C.