North American Network Operators Group
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Re: More demand or less supply?

  • From: Robert E. Seastrom
  • Date: Fri May 18 10:15:28 2001 
Sean Donelan <[email protected]> writes:

> Why is 2 to 3 times more capacity offline this year compared with previous
> years?  I don't know.  It appears the "supply" shortage is not due to
> increased demand, or even the lack of new power plant capacity; but due
> to the shutdown of existing capacity by generation companies at a higher
> rate than normal.

My understanding is that there is a seasonal "online / maint" cycle
for the generation plants, and that many of them were not taken
offline for normal PM several months ago because of energy usage
_then_...  my unsubstantiated guess would be that just like letting
your car go 30,000 miles between a pair of oil changes,
procrastination of the maint cycle eventually comes home to roost and
that's what we're seeing now.

                                        ---Rob