Mid-Atlantic Spot Power Rises After Transmission Lines Trip
Spot wholesale electricity jumped in the mid-Atlantic states after unplanned transmission outages created grid bottlenecks.
D.C. Homeland Security officials said an explosion at a power facility in southern Maryland may have caused electricity to surge into Washington, the Washington Post reported, citing unidentified officials. Power was lost briefly at the White House and on Capitol Hill.
Several 500-kilovolt lines with the ability to transport more than 2 gigawatts of electricity went out of service at about 12:43 p.m. New York time in Pepco Holdings Inc.’s utility zone, said Shiraz Akhtar, a Boston-based power analyst for Genscape Inc. The major outage among them was on a Maryland line from Chalk Point to Calvert Cliffs, the data provider said.
