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| Wednesday Jun 11, 2025 | |
| By emergency order from the Department of Energy, the J H Campbell coal plant in Michigan must operate this summer. The order, issued on May 23rd, cites the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NERC) summer reliability assessment (which we covered here) and declared an emergency for the Midcontinent ISO due to the possibility of an energy shortfall this summer. The coal plant was originally set to retire on May 31st as part of Consumers Energy’s goal to be coal free this year. Their transition plan includes replacing existing coal plants with renewables and more efficient natural gas plants. The chairman of the Michigan Public Service Commission has stated that bringing the plant back online after the decommissioning process has already begun will likely mean ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Jun 10, 2025 | |
| Canada is once again battling wildfires this year, and we have been closely monitoring their impact—particularly on the natural gas landscape in Western Canada. The wildfires have intensified in the eastern and northeastern regions of Alberta, where a significant number have been classified as “out of control,” prompting urgent safety measures and evacuations in affected communities. In our recent natural gas morning reports for Western Canada, we discussed how these wildfires have affected the natural gas market, especially in the Oil Sands Delivery Area (OSDA), one of the key demand regions. Figure 1 | Alberta Wildfire Status Dashboard, June 9, 2025 – Government of Alberta & NGTL Map In Figure 1, the left map displays current wildfire status in ... » read more | |
| Monday Jun 9, 2025 | |
| To be in a pickle, in a bind, or in a jam, is to be stuck without a good option. In baseball, you might find yourself in a pickle when you try to steal a base pr get caught rounding a base on single up the middle but the outfielder makes a play where you are now in a rundown with the infielders. At work, you might find yourself in one when you bite of more than you can chew and have deadlines rapidly approaching. In the world of natural gas, it is the hard limits of the industries infrastructure that leads to problems. Take for example, at the end of the summer injection season, storage operators are running near full capacity given their rediness for the upcoming winter but there is still time for excess needing to find a home and without the ability to put it into the ground price move ... » read more | |
| Friday Jun 6, 2025 | |
| Hard-fisted tactics, arm twisting, and realpolitik have been at play between the Trump Administration and New York State Governor Kathy Hochul over energy policy and permitting in the Northeast and presents an interesting parallel to New York’s role in the American Revolutionary War. So, in this blog, let’s take a brief historical and geographic look back… British forces in 1777 sought to divide the colonies and isolate New England by controlling New York State, along waterways from the mouth of the Hudson at New York City, up the navigable portion of the Hudson to Albany and Troy, and territory from there up to Lake George and into Lake Champlain up to Canada. In the Battle of Saratoga (north of Albany), the British were defeated in September and October by ... » read more | |
| Thursday Jun 5, 2025 | |
| Much has been made of the growth of renewables over the past year. CAISO set the standard as the nation’s leader in renewable energy but other markets have been working to follow its example and close the gap—most notably ERCOT in Texas, but more recently MISO and PJM have seen meteoric growth in solar capacity especially. CAISO continues to see growth in renewables, particularly in its solar and battery fleets, but the effects of renewable expansion to the CAISO grid have been muted this spring compared to last year, and especially so during the month of May. This was one of the topics covered in our latest Renewable Monthly report, “May 2025 – Solar Breathing Room”. Real-time prices rose from April to May at both the NP15 and SP15 hubs ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Jun 4, 2025 | |
| The last week in May brought the heat to California with high temperatures and elevated demand. The weather event threw a wrench in the usual spring playbook for batteries as midday pricing came in over the $0/MWh mark. In our most recent battery report, we took a closer look at the events of the week and how the CAISO battery fleet responded. Read on for a sneak peek of Heat Sprints and Ancillaries’. Figure 1 | CAISO Peak Power Demand – Actual and Forecast for end of May/early June 2025 The chart above illustrates the latest weather driven peak power demand uptick within CAISO (left) where the blue vertical bars represent the forecasted number while the black line with orange dots indicate where the actual volume ended up settling in at. The charts to the right break ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Jun 3, 2025 | |
| Our latest special report titled “May Curtail-less Call” reflect the current grid dynamics across California’s energy landscape, between abundant solar generation with fluctuating demand and weather patterns. Throughout early 2025, the state has experienced persistent renewable curtailments, especially in Southern California (SP15), where excess solar output during midday hours and transmission constraints along Path 15 have pushed CAISO real-time prices into negative territory. However, the month of May brought temporary relief, thanks to two heatwave events that spiked demand and allowed more solar generation to be absorbed by the grid. Figure 1 | CAISO Peak Load Summary – Daily Actuals and Forecast Real-time and day-ahead market data indicate a shift in ... » read more | |
| Monday Jun 2, 2025 | |
| When you push your limit through exercise, for example trying your hand at rock climbing despite a complete lack of upper body strength, or helping your book-worm friend move apartments, you might start to “feel the burn”. This occurs when you ask your muscles to do work at a faster rate than your lungs and heart can supply oxygen. This forces the body to turn to its anaerobic metabolism, a less efficient but still powerful system for producing energy. Unfortunately, this system has some side effects, namely “the burn”, which is the buildup of lactic acid in our muscles. Figure 1 | West Power Burns (BCF/Day), 2-Day Moving Average In the world of power and gas “the burn” instead suggests power burns, or the use of natural gas as a thermal resource. Like ... » read more | |
| Friday May 30, 2025 | |
| By Emily Johnson My now-husband and I married two weeks ago, and as a honeymoon trip we rented a cabin designed in the style of a lookout tower over by the Bend, Oregon. From the lookout, we could see a dozen different peaks, and if you walked out just a little further, there was a great view of the Deschutes River. Figure 1 | Panoramic View from the Lookout As one typically does when they go on vacation, we started imagining what it would be like to live in a place this remote. The view would be fantastic, we’d have great access to any kind of outdoor activity we’d possibly want, no road noise, great air quality, with sage as an olfactory backdrop. However, we quickly fleshed out the numerous downsides. This was a little island of habitability in an expanse of desert, which ... » read more | |
| Thursday May 29, 2025 | |
| After peaking at 14.6 GW back on the 9th of May (for the HL average), hydro generation has been on a downward path for much of the month. But now, with just a few days left until the start of June, things have turned the corner with a few different changes in conditions and hydro operations driving production higher. HL hydro generation bottomed out over the Memorial Day weekend below 9.5 GW this past Sunday but stepped up big starting Tuesday with output rising to 12.6 GW. Figure 1 | PNW Hydro Daily Average Generation (MW) This was both welcome and needed given the demand environment in the Pacific Northwest, with temperatures rising to 85 degrees yesterday and 93 degrees in Boise, and with additional increases on the way Friday. Load numbers have risen while ... » read more | |