May 16, 2008

 

The Lincoln Electric System Administrative Board held its regular monthly meeting May 16 at the Lincoln Electric Building. Items from the meeting, as well as other pertinent information, include:

 

LES Resources to Meet Summer Peak Energy Demand

LES has the resources available to meet customers’ demand for electricity this summer, according to Bruce Merrill, manager of Power Supply’s Resource and Transmission Planning Department.

He said if weather in the Lincoln area is the average of summer weather recorded during the last 30 years, LES expects a peak electricity demand of 781 megawatts (MW). That’s 2 MW higher than the peak record set July 19, 2006, of 779 MW. One MW is equal to the electricity needed by about 250 homes.

If weather this summer is as hot as the hottest summer the past 20 years, the peak could be as high as 822 MW, he said. At the other extreme, if temperatures average as low as the coolest summer, the peak could be 653 MW.

LES has a Power Purchase Program that involves several large, local businesses that can be called on to curtail use during times of high wholesale prices, the failure of a major resource or transmission restrictions. LES has contracted with large, local businesses to curtail 4 MW. In return for curtailing use, LES pays the businesses rather than paying high costs for wholesale electricity. The program keeps money in Lincoln. Although unlikely to occur, LES will notify customers through its Power Watch program if it is necessary for residential customers to reduce their use of electricity.

Resources are adequate to meet load, reserves and even high weather swings this summer, he said.

 

Other Reports

 

The following statistics for April were presented to the Board:

April 2008	April 2007	Change
Number of Customers
127,469	125,541	+1,928 (+1.5%)
Retail Electricity Use (MWh)
227,956	223,706	+4,250 (+1.9%)
12-Month Average Outage Time/Customer (minutes)
30.8	25.4	+5.4

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