An energy consulting firm with offices in Boston and Portland

Judging from the plumes rising from the plant during the week of Jan. 21, Wyman Station was really cranking.Windy days and near-zero temperatures prompted ISO-New England to put in place procedures meant to beef up the region's power supply. Generators were told to halt any unneeded repairs and be available. On Thursday, Jan. 24, New England sucked up 20,814 megawatts at 7 p.m.aluminum profile, a couple of thousand megawatts shy of a winter record set in 2004.The impact on the wholesale energy market was dramatic. Compared to the prior week, the cost of natural gas rose more than 100 percent, from $6.85 per million BTU to $14. Real-time electric prices that had averaged $55.75 a megawatt-hour the week before shot up to $174.07 mwh, a 212 percent increase. There's no way for the public to know exactly how many hours, and at what power levels, NextEra ran Wyman Station during the cold snap. But with tight gas supplies and electricity worth so much during the period, the gross sum could have added up to millions of dollars,aluminum beam according to Daniel Peaco, a former Central Maine Power Co. manager and now president of LaCapra Associates, an energy consulting firm with offices in Boston and Portland."You have to have an unusual combination of demand, gas prices and unavailability of other units for them to run and make that kind of money," he said.Power plants need to cover their marginal costs, such as fuel and labor, as well as long-term capital costs, such as maintenance and taxes. Unless the plant faces a major capital expense, Peaco said, it may make economic sense for NextEra to continuing owning the plant and running it, as is. That view is shared by Don Sipe,You'd probably recall India, Afghanistan, Kashgar tours, but never Uzbekistan. Mind you, the first of Moghuls - Babur - was born in what now is known as Fergana Valley in contemporary Uzbekistan. a former Public Utilities Commission attorney who specializes in energy law."I don't think they have to make a lot of money," he said. "So why close it? What we don't know is if they have a big maintenance cost staring them in the face. That would kill it more than low electricity prices would."Every discussion of the future of Wyman Station includes speculation about natural gas. Converting to efficient, cleaner-burning gas turbines would increase the plant's value and run-time. Florida Power & Light announced plans to do just that in 1999, but never followed through.As it happens, Yarmouth, Falmouth and Cumberland currently are entertaining bids from natural gas providers to extend a pipeline to their towns, and NextEra has been part of the discussion. A small gas line might wind up connecting Wyman Station, Tupper said, but don't expect to see gas turbines."NextEra has signaled to me that they aren't going to make a conversion of fuel sources out there," he said. "They are talking about gas for house steam, to keep the equipment warm and ready. But they aren't looking at gas for power production."