Charlottesville, Virginia (Platts)--1May2008

New transmission, generation and demand response have clearly
strengthened New York and New England's ability to meet electricity demand
during extreme heat and humidity, the Northeast Power Coordinating Council
said on Thursday.

The NPCC reported that New England, New York, Ontario, Quebec and the
Canadian Maritime Provinces are likely to have sufficient supplies of
electricity even under extreme weather conditions this summer.

New England and New York, and to a lesser extent Ontario, will need to
evoke limited emergency operating procedures only if widespread and prolonged
heat and humidity occur at the same time as a severe loss of transmission,
generation, demand response, and available resources in neighboring regions.
That scenario is unlikely to occur, the council said.

"The installation of a second 345-kV line between Maine and New Brunswick
this past winter, last summer's New Jersey-to-Long Island [high-voltage
direct-current] cable addition, along with the completion of other
transmission upgrades in New England have strengthened the overall reliability
of the NPCC system," Edward Schwerdt, NPCC?s president and CEO, said in a
statement.

Southwestern Connecticut has been a source of worry for the past several
years because of transmission constraints, but Schwerdt said "the combined
effect" of increased transmission and demand response "have gone a long way
towards mitigating these concerns."

Boston, another area of past concern, now has an additional 1,000 MW of
import capacity because of transmission upgrades completed last year, he said.
New York, both the city and state, forecast an adequate supply of electricity
for this summer. Demand response programs and operating procedures are in
place to avert a range of potential reliability concerns, the NPCC said.

Ontario has seen a steady growth in demand response programs since the
summer of 2004. In addition, the province expects to gain about 300 MW of new
generating capacity this summer, including a 250-MW gas-fired plant in the
Toronto area, the report said.