Central East Congestion in New York to Moderate this Summer | Congestion Watch Blog

Power prices in Eastern New York have been sky-high this year. Surging natural gas prices are to blame, as is elevated congestion across one of NYISO’s key transmission interfaces.

Persistent congestion across the Central East interface continues to boost power prices in Eastern New York, particularly in the Capital region. In April, this transmission bottleneck was responsible for a whooping $40/MWh price difference between Eastern and Western New York. Aggravating the transmission constraint, the Central East interface has been operating at reduced capacity due to construction-related transmission outages.

Since early 2021, LS Power – an independent transmission developer – and the New York Power Authority (NYPA) have been implementing major transmission upgrades in upstate New York that will ultimately address the Central East interface constraint. However, project implementation requires removing from service existing transmission facilities that are critical for the interface’s overall integrity and transfer capability. Specifically, the outage of the Edic-New Scotland 500 kV transmission line has greatly affected the Central East interface, dramatically increasing congestion between Western and Eastern New York.

As we have discussed in our latest issue of ESAI’s Congestion Watch, LS Power, NYPA, and NYISO are working on an interim solution to restore a large part of the Central East interface this summer. Although the solution specifics keep changing, we expect that a significant portion of the interface capability will be restored temporarily, greatly reducing the congestion potential between Western and Eastern New York this summer.

Find out more about congestion drivers, detailed outage information and congestion analysis for Summer 2022 and an update on the FTR auction in our recent issue of Congestion Watch.