Winter Demand Hits Record In PJM – And GDF SUEZ Offers A Tool To Manage It

March 02, 2015

PJM reported that winter electricity demand hit an all-time high on Feb. 20, breaking the mark set during last year’s polar vortex. And while low temperatures can lead to price volatility, customers of GDF SUEZ Energy Resources had a valuable tool to help them monitor their usage and save money as prices fluctuated.

At 8 a.m. on Feb. 20, demand reached 143,700 MW. That surpassed the summer 2014 peak of 141,402 MW – the first time winter peak exceeded summer’s – and topped the previous record of 141,746 MW.

“We see power use the highest in summer,” PJM spokeswoman Paula DuPont-Kidd told the Lehigh Valley Express-Times. “And so usually when we hit a record in the summer, at this point, we're talking over 150,000 (MW). But for winter, this is still a pretty high number.”

While last year’s severe cold raised reliability concerns, PJM said it had 160,958 MW of available capacity in February, more than enough to handle the winter blast. “We did not have to issue any public calls for conservation,” DuPont-Kidd added.

As noted above, one result of falling temperatures is price volatility; that, in turn, can lead to higher energy costs. However, customers can mitigate the impact of these price hikes if they have access to real-time data they can translate into actionable strategies.

And that is exactly what GDF SUEZ Energy Resources delivers. We helped customers manage price concerns during winter’s late-February blast with our PJM price alert service, which offered real-time data when temperatures were plummeting.

By notifying customers that designated pricing and budget thresholds may be exceeded, helped our customers initiate a load-management strategy to reduce energy costs during these high-priced intervals. The alert service is customized by pricing zone and pricing threshold, and is automatically emailed during peak-related events.

Our focus on providing the right information, at the right time, to help customers manage costs and usage is a core commitment of GDF SUEZ. By delivering critical energy-related data, we enable our customers’ facilities to analyze their consumption and identify ways to cut their costs. That can be especially valuable during periods of peak demand such as PJM saw last month.

This is a key benefit of our VPowerTM energy usage tool, which enables commercial and industrial customers to monitor their energy usage, minimize peaks, and reduce distribution charges. This real-time, web-based energy management reporting system monitors data that can be used to identify opportunities for efficiency improvement, load shifting, and peak shaving or to budget costs throughout a facility.

In addition, the load information allows for market data to be analyzed in order to backcast and/or forecast price responses associated with load response opportunities. For further information about how VPower can help you, or on how to enroll in our PJM price alert service, please contact Victor Wulc at victor.wulc@gdfsuezna.com.