Power shortages in Europe had an indirect impact on Manitowoc Public Utilities during this week’s stretch of hot weather.
MPU General Manager Troy Adams confirmed for Seehafer News that a lot of energy fuel was being shipped out of our country.
He said that “With the situation in Europe right now and European countries looking for a different source of fuel a lot of coal and pet coke is being shipped across the sea.”
So, Adams explained we’re in a situation where that drives up prices, locally.
“Because we’re exporting energy, it’s driving up prices locally,” he said. “That actually changes the dynamics on how the grid works and what normally wouldn’t have been in the money in the grid is all of a sudden in the money and you see coal plants that have been moth-balled or intended to be retired all of a sudden trying to come back online…[They are] looking for coal or other fossil fuels which drive the prices up.”
It also changes the so-called congestion on the transmission grid.
“And so locally we were anticipating we were going to be running all out when it was so hot,” Adams told us. “But, because we couldn’t push enough energy out we were generating just to meet the city’s needs and not running at max and pushing out to the grid.”
Adams added, “We were expecting to sell a lot of electricity outside the area, but with the shortage overseas, it was more the case of just meeting local (electrical) needs.”
