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New England Burns Jet Fuel To Keep Lights On
First time accepted submitter inqrorken writes "During the recent cold snap, New England utilities turned to an unconventional fuel: jet fuel. Due to high demand for heating, natural gas supplies dropped and prices skyrocketed to $140/mmBtu and prompting the Mid-Atlantic RTO to call on demand response in the region. With 50% of installed generation capacity natural-gas fired, one utility took the step of running its jet fuel-based turbines for a record 15 hours."
So this wasn't an equipment failure requiring a backup, but just market price fluctuation: The cost of natural gas per Watt generated went above the cost per Watt of the fuel for the backup generators, due to the high demand for natural gas as demand rose as temperatures fell. Sounds like Econ 101.
1. Why didn't the wholesale electric prices rise in tandem with the gas price to keep generation economical? Capped by fixed residential rates?
2. Why didn't the generators use the derivatives market to hedge against spikes in gas prices so they'd be able to keep buying as demand/price rose?
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
From Wikipedia (ya, I know...) on "Jet Fuel"
"Jet fuel is a clear to straw-colored fuel, based on either an unleaded kerosene (Jet A-1), or a naphtha-kerosene blend (Jet B). It is similar to diesel fuel, and can be used in either compression ignition engines or turbine engines. .... if it fails the purity and other quality tests for use on jet aircraft, it is sold to other ground-based users with less demanding requirements, like railroad engines."
So still not much of an event, other than to say "ooh, wow. Jet Fuel."
If it's worth doing, it's worth doing for money.
Regional Transsmission Organization. After the deregulation of the bulk electric system, these companies are given the responsibility of monitoring high voltage transmission reliability. They commonly are also Independent Service Organizations, which operate regional wholesale electric markets.
You might be tempted to believe this was just the usual "Headline Hype" on the part of Forbes.
However, in this case it was an appropriate use of the term since the units fired up were in fact combustion turbines, (jet engines turning turbines), also used on many Navy ships.
As a consequence, the grid operators have resorted to some rather unusual steps. Energy Choice Matters reported today that ISO-New England asked Public Service of New Hampshire (PSNH – a subsidiary of NorthEast Utilities) to operate its entire generation fleet this week to help keep the lights on. This included firing up several infrequently-deployed combustion turbines which ran on jet fuel.
These are usually used as a source of last resort. They are usually avoided even for peaking demand. They are loud, suck fuel like crazy.
They exist for precisely this type of emergency, fuel shortage, scheduled down time of gas fired plants, or any grid failure.
In Alaska where I lived for 30 years, you saw exhaust from the turbines, you knew your next electric bill was going to hurt, because hydro and gas plants were down. You also knew that the LAST backup system was in use, so you stoked up the wood stove and turned off all unnecessary electrical load.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
suck fuel like crazy
That's not even an understatement. At my utility we have three such units which would only be run on emergency, and we have fairly reasonable storage tanks on site, but once they start running it's only a matter of time before they run out, and tanker trucks can't unload fuel as fast as these things burn it.
"No, they mean kerosene-gasoline blend, more commonly knows as jet fuel."
Jet fuel has no gasoline in it.
In fact most turbine aircraft engines are limited to just a few hours of operation with any amount of gasoline mixed into the fuel.
After that you you get to overhaul the hot-end with the added bonus of tossing some very expensive turbine wheels of blades away
A bullet may have your name on it, but artillery is addressed to " Whom It May concern"
Great post - that little buzzword, "jet fuel" really doesn't mean what the uninformed think that it means.
A couple points:
There are various grades of jet fuel, and those various grades are suitable for a number of uses. Aboard ship, we burned JP4 in our boilers. JP5 would burn just as well, with less soot, but it was more expensive so we always specified JP4 in our fuel requirements.
I've often read stories of aviation facilities rejecting fuel deliveries when it failed one test or other. That fuel is invariable accepted as a lower quality fuel, and used in less demanding aircraft, or used for power generation, or even used for diesel fuel.
As for TFS, the reference to " an unconventional fuel" is completely off target. Following the links, one discovers that the generation plants have turbine powered generators ready to go online at a moment's notice. There is nothing "unconventional" about their use, other than the economic pressures which dictated their use. It is simply unusual for jet fuel to become more available and/or economical to use than natural gas. In short - the generation companies were ready at a moment's notice to fire up these jet fuel generators, which really are quite "conventional".
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