New York's grid operator issues "energy watch" for second straight day, but avoids outages

Rensselaer, NY — The New York Independent System Operator has a new “grid alert system” in 2025, which has now been utilized on back to back days coinciding with the year’s first heat wave.

“We launched it a couple of months ago as a way to provide greater information as to what’s happening on the high voltage electric system for consumers, especially to know about,” Kevin Lanahan, Vice President, External Affairs, Corporate Communications, NYISO, says. “When we’re in an ‘energy watch’ state, it means our reserve levels have dropped below a certain threshold.And we ask if it’s safe to do so, for consumers to begin to conserve electricity.But it’s really especially in an ‘energy watch’, just making sure people are aware that we could go through, go to another threshold, which is more of a concern.”

An ‘energy watch’ means NYISO is looking at a lower energy supply, with forecasted reserves expected to remain below 2,620 MW for longer than 60 minutes. In this is announced, they suggest voluntarily conserving power.

The next threshold is an ‘energy warning’, which they declared on Tuesday. In an energy warning, they have the potential to enter emergency operations due to lower reserves. In that case, NYISO requests conservation of electricity during a specific period, if safe to do so.

The last threshold is an ‘energy emergency’, where “controlled outages may occur”. In this case, they say reserves would be below 1,310 MW, and not expected to recover for at least 30 minutes.

Stay tuned for more on this story.