Good morning. It is Wednesday. Can New York City’s Electrical System Handle the Heat Wave? We’ll explore why the answer is a little different than it was before the pandemic. We’ll also look at why the Manhattan District Attorney dropped a murder charge against a bodega clerk who stabbed an attacker to death.
“The next few days are a big test,” said Laurie Wheelock, the interim director of the Public Utility Law Project, an advocacy group, when I asked if New York City was less vulnerable to a major power outage during this heat wave than it was to the pandemic.
I phrased the question this way because the pandemic has changed energy consumption. Fewer people are moving into offices in Midtown Manhattan — just 8 percent of those who work for private employers are at their desks five days a week, according to a survey in May. Mayor Eric Adams has been an outspoken advocate of bringing employees back to the office, but many continue to work remotely. And some companies have relocated, bringing their offices closer to their employees.
As a result, New Yorkers have shifted when and where they use electricity. Air conditioners in some residential areas now buzz during working hours. Before the pandemic, they would generally have been disabled when their owners left for the office. Also in home offices, computers are on all day.
“The heat and demand put stress on the system, so there would definitely be extra stress if there were more people at home than when they were in the office,” said Jamie McShane, a spokesperson for Con Edison. McShane said the projected maximum load this week is expected to reach 12,000 megawatts per day. That is well below the 13,000 megawatt peak recorded in July 2013.
Electricity flows through a web of high voltage transmission feeders, substations and low voltage distribution feeders on its way to businesses and homes. “A heat wave is essentially an invisible hurricane,” said Yury Dvorkin, an assistant professor at New York University who led a project on whether infrastructure systems were resilient enough to support large numbers of people working from home. “It pushes the system to its limits.”
Still, the state’s Public Service Commission said in May that the grid and utilities were prepared for increased demand in the summer. It predicted a statewide peak of about 2,000 megawatts less than last summer and about 10,000 megawatts less than the maximum power that could be generated if needed. (The committee also warned that electricity bills would be higher than a year ago. Con Edison is targeting a 17.6 percent rate increase for providing power to its customers. This would complement the rise in customer bills in February, as fuel prices rose worldwide.)
There has already been one heat wave this month, although the relatively low humidity made it less uncomfortable. “We quietly got to 90″ last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, said Jay Engle, a forecaster with the National Weather Service. “This one is now the first with a combination of heat and humidity. That is the difference.”
And while memories tend to fade when it comes to how hot it was, his statistics showed there were three heatwaves last summer, using the definition of a heatwave as three consecutive days with temperatures of at least 90 degrees. In 2020, there was a 10-day period in late July when thermometers rose more than 90 degrees every day.
The Weather Service says the temperature will reach 94 degrees today and 95 degrees tomorrow, when there is a chance of thunder. But the city has already opened cooling centers in air-conditioned buildings. (Here’s a location finder on the city’s website.)
And Con Edison opened his emergency center, a command post in an auditorium-sized room on the 19th floor of the headquarters in Manhattan’s Union Square neighborhood.
“Con Ed, like all major electric companies, has been pushed on resilience, resilience, resilience,” Wheelock told me. “That’s one thing we’re looking at. Hopefully you don’t call back in two days and say, “Hello, look what just happened.” We all want Con Ed to be successful.”
Weather
Get ready for a warm, sunny day in the mid 90s. The evening is usually clear with temperatures dropping to around the high 70s.
ALTERNATE SIDE PARKING
Valid until August 15 (Feast of the Ascension).
The Manhattan District Attorney has dropped a murder charge against a bodega clerk who stabbed an attacker to death. Fueled by video clips, headlines and comments from Mayor Eric Adams for more than two and a half weeks, the case had raised difficult questions about crime, self-defense and the criminal justice system.
The clerk, Jose Alba, 61, killed Austin Simon, 35, on July 1 after Alba argued with Simon’s girlfriend and Simon went behind the counter. The district attorney, Alvin Bragg, filed the second-degree murder charge, demanding $500,000 bail, which prosecutors say was justified because they said Alba intended to leave the country.
Alba’s supporters objected that the charges should not have been brought because he was defending himself in his shop.
Bragg was suddenly criticized for being too hard on Alba after months of being labeled too lenient with defendants. Adams, a former police captain who has often called for tougher prosecutions, held a news conference at the bodega, declaring that Alba was the personification of “innocent New Yorkers” who should be able to do their jobs without fear of crime.
“We have enough people out there for people who break the law,” Adams said. “I’m someone who is there for people who obey the law.”
The dismissal of the charges against Alba was not particularly unusual, veterans of the district attorney’s office said, although Karen Friedman Agnifilo – a deputy to Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr. — said the investigation seemed to be progressing “quite quickly.”
Still, she said some of the criticism of Bragg had been unjustified. “These are tough decisions, really,” she said. “These are difficult cases and they are close calls.”
METROPOLITAN diary
Charcoal
Dear Diary:
I boarded a 1 train in Chambers Street and took a seat in the middle of a half-empty car. It wasn’t until we reached Penn Station that I saw my charcoal drawing in the open sketchbook of the older man sitting next to me.
I sat as still as I could until 50th Street while he finished sketching. He signed the sheet, tore it carefully along the perforation and handed it to me without saying a word.
“This is great,” I said. “Do you do this often?”
“Every day,” he replied. “On another train.”
“What tomorrow?”
“The 6.”
We talked for a while. He told me about his time as a city worker and why he used charcoal. I drove two extra stops so we could finish the conversation.
I found a $10 bill in my wallet and thanked him for the photo and chat.
“I’ll see you again,” he said.
“I sure hope so,” I said.
Luckily I walked the 19 blocks home.
— Renato de Angelis
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send entries here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.