Wintry Blast to Unleash Snow, Test Grids From Midwest to NYC

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(Bloomberg) — A long stretch of extreme cold is expected to send demand for energy and natural gas surging across much of the U.S. this weekend, with snow expected in the Northeast by Sunday and a chance of snow or sleet along the Gulf Coast early. next week.

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Cold weather has already begun to set in across the central United States. By Monday, daily high temperatures will be 20 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit below average across a large area of ​​the country, according to the U.S. Weather Prediction Center. Houston will have overnight readings below freezing, while Washington will see single digits. President-elect Donald Trump said he plans to hold his inauguration scheduled for Monday indoors. Up to 3 inches (8 cm) of snow could fall in Manhattan during the day Sunday.

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“At least for the Northeastern U.S., these readings will be the coldest since before Christmas in 2022,” said David Roth, a meteorologist at the Weather Prediction Center.

That winter, a short-lived polar front dropped temperatures to single digits F, but the system currently spreading across the United States was expected to last up to four days, Roth added.

The largest U.S. electric grid, PJM Interconnection, said in a statement that demand on Tuesday and Wednesday “is expected to approach the winter peak PJM has ever recorded,” which occurred on February 20, 2015. PJM, which serves more than 65 million people From Washington, D.C. to Chicago, a “conservative operations” event was announced starting Monday due to the extreme cold, suggesting that generators must secure gas supplies to prevent outages as demand rises.

In the Northeast, rising energy demand pushed natural gas fuel trading on Friday as high as $100 per million British thermal units — the most expensive gas in the country — for the region near New York, according to traders monitoring the cash market. Due to pipeline restrictions, winter natural gas prices in the region often rise during periods of extreme cold.

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New York’s Independent System Operator, which runs the state’s grid, announced it expects demand to reach 24.4 gigawatts on Tuesday, exceeding its high forecast for this winter. In a statement on Friday, NYISO Vice President of Operations Aaron Markham said the system should still have an “adequate supply of electricity” to weather the cold snap.

The Mid-Continent Independent System Operator, which serves more than 45 million people from the Great Lakes region and Canada down to the Gulf Coast, also issued conservative operations notices starting Monday, asking transmission line and power plant operators to cancel any possible maintenance.

Meanwhile, Texas’ grid manager – the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas – warned customers that severe weather could lead to higher demand and “potentially lower reserves” Monday through Thursday. Ercot said it did not expect a supply shortage. Energy demand forecasts have declined somewhat, with peak demand expected to reach 75.4 GW on Monday morning.

-With assistance from Ruth Liao.

(Updates with an impact on the natural gas market in the sixth paragraph and details on energy grids in the Midwest and Texas in the seventh and eighth paragraphs.)

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