Question Everything: Why are electricity prices so high and are rolling blackouts possible?
BOSTON -- Stephen Schardin fires up his electric stove and then gets fired up about the electric bill for his Andover home. His recent National Grid bill doubled from 16 cents per kilowatt hour to 33 cents.
So he reached out to WBZ-TV with questions about what the utility companies are doing.
"I'm not sure that a lot of people can afford those kinds of jumps in the cost of their electric bill, their food bill, their gas bill, and on and on and on," said Schardin.
WBZ-TV's David Wade recently went to the Eversource system control center. We were asked not to share the exact location.
"The room that you are in is handling the transmission for all of Eastern Massachusetts," said Joe Nolan, CEO of Eversource.
On a towering screen, we watched power going from town to town, house to house. They compare it to air traffic control, only it is electricity flying around.
"I feel for our customers right now," Nolan said.
Why are prices so high?
We know it starts with the war in Ukraine. Russia stopped sending gas to Europe so there's less supply but plenty of demand.
Back here at home, where most electricity is produced from natural gas, Eversource doesn't have it's own power plants, so they rely on plants which are buying and storing less fuel.
"And these generators, because the price of fuel is so high, they are only storing 40-50% of the fuel that they need on site," Nolan said.
Eversource worries there won't be enough to keep these transmission lines going.
"I wrote to President Biden asking him, they have got significant strategic petroleum reserves. There is an opportunity there," Nolan said.
Some was released in October to help with gas prices, but Nolan said it was not enough.
Will your power be shut off?
There are two words causing major unease for Eversource and for the folks at home: rolling blackouts.
Eversource worries that if we had a stretch of bitterly cold weather, which happens in New England, then they may have to shut down power to customers for a short period of time.
"I think that's an atrocity," said Schardin.
Nolan agreed. "I couldn't agree with you more," he said. "It's bad enough that the prices are high. But then if you don't have it, it's even worse."
Schardin is a National Grid customer though. When we asked National Grid if it was worried about rolling blackouts, it was less alarmed.
It pointed out a comment from ISO New England, which oversees the entire region's electrical grid. A few weeks ago, ISO New England said there should be "adequate electricity supplies this winter under mild and moderate weather conditions."
"ISO New England is reporting that if you have a mild or moderate winter we will be fine," Nolan said. "But we know that doesn't happen in New England. We can only hope that it would happen. But it's very, very real and it's serious."
Big energy bills and threats of outages. Another reason to root for a mild winter.
