PJM

The most significant operating expense for energy pipelines is the power needed for pumps and compressors. So, when gas and power prices surge as a result of inclement weather, it can be costly for pipelines. To address that risk, many midstream companies have enrolled in demand-response programs with power providers, where they agree to temporarily cut back some assets. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss the strategies that pipelines are using to boost their operations and lower costs.

More than 70 new data centers are under development in Virginia, which is already the world’s leading hub for the massive, high-tech facilities. But given the rapid pace of the buildout and the challenges that come with it, it’s probably no surprise that not everyone in the Old Dominion State is as enthusiastic about data centers as they once were. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at some of the biggest data centers in the works and discuss their path forward. 

Before data centers were the hot topic everywhere, Virginia was already rolling out the red carpet and it seemed that tech firms were constructing facilities as fast as humanly possible, drawn by the state’s robust fiber-optic network and low power prices. But while other states are racing to catch up, Virginia may be hitting the brakes. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at what makes Virginia so “sweet” for data center developers, their impact on the state, and efforts by some to slow progress. 

Sitting within or near the Marcellus/Utica shale gas play and facing tightening environmental rules that start kicking in next April, power generators in the PJM (a large region that includes the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia and Ohio as well as parts of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan) and New York electricity markets very likely will burn increasing amounts of natural gas the next few years. But with pressure to rebuild depleted gas inventories after this year’s Polar Vortex winter and the next wave of coal-unit retirements still months away, to what degree will generators in the region turn to gas this summer? In this episode in our gas power burn series, we provide a progress report on gas-inventory rebuilding and look at this summer’s coal-versus-gas dynamics in PJM and New York.