FERC's Summer Energy Market Assessment Anticipates Few or No Surprises or Outages in U.S.; Abundant Natural Gas Poised to Flow into Any Vacuum

摘要

At FERC's monthly open meeting held yesterday, 5/21/09, staff presented the 2009 Summer Energy Market Reliability Assessment with a PowerPoint presentation. Due to the economic downturn, the 2008 actual power load was somewhat less than the 2008 forecast load. The 2009 forecast is lower than the 2007 and 2008 projections. Since total capacity substantially exceeds both the expected actual and forecast demand, moreover, all regions have adequate reserves and expect to provide reliable service throughout the 2009 summer month. Staff believes the expected average on-peak capacity for the 2009 summer will be 15.2% of "nameplate capacity," which represents an on-peak increase of 21.5%, or 805 MW from the 2008 summer assessment.