PSEG forecasts even lower electric demand in coming decades

Long Islanders will drive down peak electric use over the next eight years to the lowest levels the utility has ever forecast, according to new estimates by PSEG Long Island, which cited energy efficiency measures as the major driver.

The new projections show a marked drop from the projections forecast even a year ago and are a night-and-day contrast from those of 2013, when the utility was planning to open a big, new fossil-fuel plant and overhaul three others. Those plans have since been scrapped.

The lower figures come even as PSEG and LIPA are preparing for an onslaught of new electric vehicles and heating-cooling systems called heat pumps that will add new demand to the electric grid.

The reductions from efficiency and more localized renewables such as home solar arrays will offset the anticipated increases for at least the next eight years, PSEG said.

In the newest projection by PSEG, electric use next year will begin a more marked decline than what the utility had projected only a year ago, and then drop from last year’s projection by an even greater amount until the end of the decade. At its height, the divergence between last year’s projection and this year’s amounts to about 300 megawatts, slightly below the amount of energy produced by a mid-sized power plant. A megawatt on the grid powers around 1,000 homes.

Total annual residential sales of electricity were projected to end 2019 at 9.042 million megawatt hours, down from the prior year's 9.538 million. The next two years are also expected to be lower, according to LIPA estimates: 8.664 million megawatt hours this year and 8.438 million next year.

PSEG’s latest forecast of the summer peak usage is a night-and-day contrast to one LIPA presented in 2013, when the projected peak for 2013 took a sharp incline from that year’s peak of around 5,500 megawatts to nearly 7,500 megawatts by 2032.

Since then the peaks have only leveled off and declined, and PSEG is now expecting that by 2028 the peak will dip below 4,500 megawatts — a difference of nearly 3,000 megawatts, about the amount of energy Long Islanders use on a typical nonpeak day.

But PSEG is projecting the steady decline in peak demand will begin a gradual upswing by 2030, and reach around 4,800 megawatts by 2038.

The main driver of the declines, according to Paul Napoli, vice president of power markets for PSEG, is the continuing trend of Long Island electric customers — residential and business — to cut usage by implementing energy efficiency measures, installing solar power and using more efficient lighting and appliances.

“The credit goes to customers who have really adopted and seen the virtue of energy efficiency as a better means to lower their electric usage,” Napoli said.

Those measures will more than offset the increases PSEG is projecting for electric cars and heat pumps.

By 2030, Napoli said, the approximately 12,000 registered electric vehicles on Long Island now are expected to increase to 208,000, and then soar to 1.2 million by 2040. That higher number will require additional capacity of around 255 megawatts, Napoli said.

Heat pumps, which use electricity and ambient air to efficiently heat and cool homes, are expected to reach Islandwide penetration of 43,000 customers over the next 10 years from several thousand now. The number could top 86,000 by 2040, necessitating another 120 megawatts of mostly winter capacity, Napoli said.

But it’s too soon for the lower forecasts to result in lower bills, he cautioned.

“The lower forecast definitely helps us to maintain the power supply cost and to moderate any potential increases,” Napoli said. And while cost structures tied to the state’s move to push offshore wind and solar to new heights aren’t yet complete, “we should be able to maintain or only see moderate increases spread out over a period of time,” he said.

What’s yet to be determined is the fate of the more than a dozen small power plants called peakers across Long Island, the gas or oil-fired generators that are used primarily on hot summer days when demand soars. The state has asked power producers to examine their plant emissions and either bring them into compliance with new emissions requirements or shut them down.

“We are currently studying that,” said Napoli, noting the state envisions a carbon free grid by 2040. The utility will look to use battery storage and other sources to reach those goals, he said.

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.