Washington (Platts)--25Nov2009/526 am EST/1026 GMT

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation on Tuesday said it expects generating capacity will be sufficient to meet winter peak demand across the US and Canada, with capacity reserve margins widening in all regions in part because lower economic activity.

"[W]e expect to have enough electricity supply and demand-side resources to meet peak demand for the winter month, under normal conditions," said Mark Lauby, director of reliability assessments and performance analysis at NERC.

NERC reported that while some winter-peaking areas, including Quebec and the western Canada could come close to minimum capacity reserves, all regions appear to have sufficient resources. The projected reserve capacity margin in Canada is expected to improve to 17% this winter from 16% a year ago.

Reserve capacity margin is a measure of available capacity over and above that needed to meet normal peak demand levels.

Overall, North America's projected reserve margin is expected to rise to 32.5% this winter from 29.3% last year, NERC said.

Gas-fired generation is projected to supply about 30% of the winter peak demand. The reliability organization added that while wind generation is expected to account for only about 1% of total supply during peak winter demand periods, the amount of available wind capacity is continuing to increase, rising by about 8,000 MW, or 30%, in the last year.

While the intermittent nature of wind resources continues to cause concerns, NERC said sufficient procedures will be taken to ensure the overall system reliability.

--Mu Li, mu_li@platts.com