Avoiding and Managing Interruptions of Electric Service Under an Interruptible Contract or Tariff

Abstract

Many large industrial consumers of electricity purchase power through special interruptible contracts or curtailable tariffs. Historically, the number of actual interruptions has been very small -many interruptible consumers have never been required to curtail their usage, and may be assuming that interruptions will never occur. This situation is largely due to the glut of electric generating capacity that exists today in the United States -generally speaking, there is enough generation available to serve all firm customers and all interruptible customers most of the time. However, this glut will likely disappear in the next few years, meaning that interruptible consumers will be required to suffer more interruptions in the near term. Industrials subject to these interruptions should work now toward mitigating the possibility of interruptions and planning their operations so that interruptions can be avoided or sustained with minimal impact. This paper describes methods available to avoid and manage interruptions.