New England’s power system is at ‘heightened risk’ heading into winter. Grid operator warns of possible power outages if an extended cold snap hits the region.

New England’s electric grid operator warned Monday that power outages are possible if an extended cold snap this winter grips the region and fuel supplies are pinched as demand spikes.

The president of ISO-New England said the region’s grid is vulnerable to extreme weather just as utilities, generators, regulators and others who are responsible for keeping the electricity on are looking to move away from carbon-based fuel.

Natural gas pipeline constraints, global supply chain problems and even a shortage of fuel delivery truck drivers on local roads place New England’s power system at “heightened risk” heading into the winter, the Holyoke, Massachusetts-based organization said.

Utilities and generators will meet consumer demand if the winter is mild. The ISO cited an outlook by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of a warmer than average winter in New England.

But a severe and prolonged cold snap could require emergency actions if generators lack access to fuel, the ISO said.

“The almost 15 million people that live in this region need to understand that we are in a precarious position when it gets into extended extreme weather, particularly cold weather,” Gordon van Welie, president and chief executive officer of the ISO, told reporters at a news conference. “This problem is not going to go away. It’s going to gradually get worse as a result of us needing to reduce the use of fossil fuels and because extreme weather I think is going to be a big variable in the equation.”

The ISO cited three risks in particular: a prolonged period of extreme cold, the global price of oil and liquefied natural gas that could affect storage and deliveries into New England and pipeline constraints as demand spikes simultaneously from heating customers and electricity generators.

Van Welie cited a local threat to sufficient fuel supplies: a shortage of truck drivers that would affect deliveries of home heating oil that also serves as light fuel oil used as a backup source by generators.

If the risks materialize and threaten the reliability of New England’s power system, the ISO said it will turn to several operating procedures to manage the grid, “up to and including controlled power outages.”

Outages are a “last resort,” the ISO said. It wants to “educate the public that if this step were required, it would be used to protect the region’s power grid from an overall collapse.”

Peter T. Brandien, vice president of system operations and market administration, said the ISO will urge conservation, asking customers to turn down the thermostat, use appliances less frequently and minimize cooking.

The ISO also will approach commercial and industrial consumers to throttle down their power use.

“I don’t want to go to Hartford or Boston or something and see all the buildings all lit up at a time that we’re asking for conservation, particularly with everybody working remotely from home,” Brandien said.

Dan Dolan, president of the New England Power Generators Association, said in an interview the region’s grid “overall has not planned for those black swan, truly extreme events.”

“Yet we’re able to weather some pretty extreme events,” he said. “There is the expectation there’s more than adequate supply going into the winter, but extreme events happen and there’s no guaranteed outcome.”

Van Welie said the ISO changed the way it communicates with the public following the winter of 2017-2018 when the average temperature was below normal in all major New England cities for at least 13 consecutive days despite a forecast of a mild winter.

“There were many sleepless nights during that two-week period . . . because we realized we were getting close to the edge. But we didn’t have an effective way to communicate on how close we were and we didn’t want to panic people,” he said. “As luck would have it we made it through to the following week when the weather broke and the supply chain could catch up with us.”

“Given how close we came to being literally within two days of an energy deficiency within the region we said never again will we want to communicate that way,” he said.

The ISO has since developed a 21-day forecast and New England has benefited from mild winters since 2017-2018, van Welie said.

However, another, more distant event had an impact in New England. The grid failure in Texas in February following a winter storm that left hundreds of people dead prompted the ISO to begin “communicating more openly about these risks,” he said.

“What happened in Texas changed everything,” van Welie said. “We’ve not rested well since the February event and the realization that we know that we’re operating close to the edge here in the wintertime in particular in New England. We’ve known that for a long time.”

ISO’s warnings are the most recent about sharply rising energy prices. Eversource Energy advised the public Nov. 3 that natural gas heating prices could jump 14%, costing an average $30 a month more than last year.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said in November its short-term energy outlook “remains subject to heightened levels of uncertainty related to the ongoing recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The price of natural gas, which comprises most of the energy generated in New England, averaged $5.51 per million British thermal units in October, up from the September average of $5.16 and an average of $3.25 in the first half of 2021, an increase of nearly 70%.

Despite the warning of what’s possible in the next few months, van Welie said ISO is “not trying to cause undue alarm.”

“But we need people to understand how vulnerable it can be under the wrong set of conditions and that this region hasn’t yet solved this problem,” he said.

Stephen Singer can be reached at ssinger@courant.com.