Featured Articles
| Friday May 10, 2019 | |
| On May 8th, ERCOT released the final Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy (SARA) for summer of 2019 and updated Capacity, Demand and Reserve (CDR) report (http://www.ercot.com/news/releases/show/181248). These are ERCOT planning documents about expected future demand, supply, and the resultant reserve margins. There is a lot to unpack in these documents – what projects have been completed, what the changes in generator’s plans are, and other topics. One variable that stands out to me is the focus on demand. ERCOT is forecasting significant demand growth over the coming years, between 2.5-3.0% per year. Nonetheless, reserve margins continue to inch up in the short-term, thanks to new renewables, uprates from existing generation, and the return to service from mothballed ... » read more | |
| Thursday May 9, 2019 | |
| As NYISO continues through outages season, the moderate temperatures have kept demand on the lower end shifting the brunt of generation away from the thermal stack. With generation returning to the grid, the Zone G LMP fell to the $19 level for Wednesday even lower than the weekend print. While the looseness in the market has decreased Downstate pricing, we are seeing a different story upstate. Zone A has one of the strongest price on the board with day-ahead clears in the mid $30's throughout this week. The higher Zone A clears point towards congestion coming out of Niagara, however, weaker prices Downstate have exacerbated this issue. Figure 1 | Niagara Falls Hydro electricity from Niagara is the largest generation source in NYISO Zone A. However, the 230 kV lines do not have quite the ... » read more | |
| Wednesday May 8, 2019 | |
| I remember making the transition from being a high school math teacher to working my first days on a trading desk. My head was spinning with the terminology that was being used on a daily basis. This was back in the day where acronyms such as the PX or the ISO RT were being discussed as markets within California. Not a day went by where the abbreviated version of the Mid Columbia (Midc) or the Desert Southwest (DSW) made their way into the conversation of spread trades tied to the SP-Midc or SP-PV markets. The final straw was when the hydro guy whipped around the terms kcfs, MAF, HL, LL and ultimately STP. I thought to myself, what kind of language are they speaking and when you saw it on paper, it looked like Alphabet Soup. Figure 1 | Alphabet Soup as we ... » read more | |
| Tuesday May 7, 2019 | |
| This past Friday, SoCal Gas posted another update to their maintenance and construction plan. The plan was to restore the ruptured 235-2 line that connects the Needles delivery point on the SoCal Border into their system prior to this summer providing some additional capacity for the peak cooling demand. Once that was restored, the company would focus their efforts on other pipeline inspections in the area. The goal is that all restriction to be lifted by this coming winter. Recent inspections of the 235-2 line have exposed additional corrosion problems which will take additional time to mitigate. This is the third time the line has been delayed with the return date being pushed back to June 21st. Each time return date is pushed back it calls into question the ability ... » read more | |
| Monday May 6, 2019 | |
| Over the years, the Renewable penetration has been quite impressive across California , Texas and parts of the Plains where SPP and MISO have a strong hold on the actual footprint. Growth presents hiccups along the way in the form of transmission constraints to the influx of supply where curtailments are in order for the grid to balance. The one market that has seen their curtailments pick up this year has been CAISO as its solar penetration is massive from both behind the meter and utility scaled facilities. Figure 1 | CAISO Utility-Scaled Solar Breakdown The graph above details the utility-scaled solar within CAISO by month/year. The bottom pane represents the monthly average output with the bars while the line graph is the cumulative max generation from the inception ... » read more | |
| Friday May 3, 2019 | |
| If you have been following the West over the past few years, the one think you have to come to realize is expect the unexpected. This is especially true when you consider Southern California has endured the Aliso Canyon storage facility leak, massive renewable penetration and natural gas pipeline constraints that led to SoCal Edison ridding their balancing area of any economic power burns last summer. Up in the Pacific Northwest, the region got a taste of pushing power burns offline as the Enbridge pipeline (British Columbia) had an explosion that disrupted the flows From the T-South compressor down through Sumas and eventually drained Jackson Prairie and Clay Basin storage over the winter months. Since the end of the winter strip, the Pacific has done nothing but put gas ... » read more | |
| Thursday May 2, 2019 | |
| Portland is near perfect weather right now with highs hitting just 70 degrees while the sky is bright and sunny. However, the pessimist inside of me questions whether a good thing can last forever with summer just around the corner. The days will continue to get longer causing temperatures to continue to work their way upwards. Before you know it, summer will make its way onto the board bringing cooling demand along with it. Generation is well aware of this shift with facilities beginning to make their way back from outage. Looking at the Northeast, nuclear units have begun to return to the grid while current outages are also expected to come back over the course of May. The PJM outage schedule is finally showing a dip at the beginning of May with generation making its way back online. » read more | |
| Wednesday May 1, 2019 | |
| Over the past year, the volatility within California's natural gas market stems from the issues surrounding SoCal Gas's system. It has been well documented when it comes to the issues at the Aliso Canyon storage facility as well as the transport capacity tied to the L3000/4000 maintenance work along with the L235 disruption on the Mojave compressor where a fire broke out back in October 2018. Over the summer the Western market saw the gas world shift up at SoCal Citygate as Stage 4/5 Low OFO's were in play along with the penalties associated to each. The penalties range anywhere from $5.00 to $25.00 depending on the severity. This uplift causes the price of power to move substantially higher across the board as the marginal megawatt gets to compete with a gas-fired ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Apr 30, 2019 | |
| Just one month ago the Lower 48 storage complex was staring at a .2 TCF storage deficit. But thanks to blooming production, record renewables output and a drop in ResCom demand the fortunes have shifted. The inventory has now moved to a year on year surplus eliminating many of the concerns the market had for end of summer storage capacity. But that good fortune has not translated north of the border. Alberta is off to a slow start despite big gains in production. Looking ahead the refill pace is unlikely to improve. The NGTL system is currently undergoing maintenance and upgrades which will restrict storage access through much of the summer. Figure 1 | Alberta Storage inventory for 2015 - 2019 Besides the system capacity issues, the power burns continue to soar. Right now the burns ... » read more | |
| Monday Apr 29, 2019 | |
| If you were in Nashville for any reason this past weekend, you were swarmed by football fans wearing their favorite team's jersey and cheering/jeering as the outside plaza area blasted each and every selection by teams during the National Football League (NFL) draft. In recent years, the NFL has moved the venue on an annual basis to give cities, like Nashville, an opportunity to showoff their culture and make-up. After the draft, the television crews are dis-assembling the stages and talk show booths that were used to cover the draft. The players, who attended the draft (usually high draft picks), were swept away by a private jet so they could arrive in their newly coveted city where they were met with team personnel, fans and local reporters. The lower drafted ... » read more | |
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