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| Thursday Apr 18, 2024 | |
| It feels strange to talk about a day when the day-ahead auction produces on-peak hub prices of $15.21 in a market as a strong showing, but that is where we are in southern California. The SP15 auction result reaching that mark for today represents the first time the day-ahead LMP has reached double-digits since this past Saturday, and the highest block price overall in April. You have to go back to last month on March 30th to find a higher result, when the LMP was a whopping $20.02. Even then, today’s implied heat rate of 12.3 narrowly edges out the 11.3 number from back on the 30th. Figure 1 | Negative Midday Prices the Norm for SP15 The state of electricity prices in Southern California has been a frequent fodder for commentary going back to the last ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Apr 17, 2024 | |
| Our ERCOT Real-Time Dashboard is new and improved! Last week, we unveiled a new version of this dashboard with updated tables and figures. While much of the data remains the same, the new format offers a clean and concise breakdown of recent historical market data and short-term forecasts. The figure below is the first chart featured in the new and improved ERCOT Real-Time Dashboard. We’ve added net load actuals and the next day’s forecast along with thermal data, including thermal generation, thermal outages, and generation plus outages. Alongside real-time and day-ahead prices, the figure shows the connections between tight points on the grid in terms of high net loads, position in the thermal stack, and the price impact. Important inflection points are more easily ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Apr 16, 2024 | |
| Close your eyes and listen to the following question where does 21 and .39 give you 55? The answer is no other place than in Texas where the ERCOT market printed $21 in the North zone on Sunday while Houston Shipchannel (HSC) weekend natural gas spot prices settled in at record lows of $0.39. When you divide the two, the heavy load implied heat rate cleared just under 55 points. Monday was not as hefty given the auction clears dropped down to $13.38 which pushed the implied heat rate down by 20 full point as it settled in around 35.0 points. Figure 1 | ERCOT Supply/Demand Breakdown There is a power issue that focuses on the evening ramp block of hours, which is a topic we have covered in-depth within the EnergyGPS South Central Power Sub-Package which is a part of the ... » read more | |
| Monday Apr 15, 2024 | |
| This is the time of year when the climate across the Lower 48 starts the wind down any heating demand and looks to start with some cooling demand in the South. This is evident in the 6-10 and 11-15 day outlook as much warmer for t temperatures are tied to the Gulf Coast and Southeast. Some days moved up more than 10 degrees with a much above normal bias now existing in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and most of SERC. Atlanta, Charlotte and Jacksonville will all see daytime highs near 90 degrees to end this week while coastal areas should stay seasonal heading into the last week of the month. Figure 1 | Lower 48 Forecasted HDD/CDD Changes from Fri to Mon April 14 HDD CDD Despite the jump in heat across the southern latitudes the net load for the Lower 48 is going to remain pressured due to a ... » read more | |
| Friday Apr 12, 2024 | |
| Being an “in the know” kind of person, I was tipped off that there was going to be a solar eclipse this past week and having a house within the path of “totality”, I invited a few friends with flexible schedules to our upstate NY deck to enjoy the event. As you can see in the picture below, everyone showed up, positioned themselves nicely and utilized the protective eyewear as they the majority of them looked toward the sky. Figure 1| Enjoying the Eclipse Yes, yes it was beautiful, angels sang, poets wept, and I struggled for words like “wow”, but the sun is our primary energy source and this being an energy blog, the eclipse had a significant and measurable effect on solar generation in its route. This was most dramatic ... » read more | |
| Thursday Apr 11, 2024 | |
| It’s that time of year when spring comes to the Pacific Northwest. What snowpack there is likely to be for the water year has mostly finished accumulating by now and the wait is on for temperatures to warm enough to start the melt and bringing the synthetic snow in the form of ice and snow down off the mountaintops. The other primary marker of the start of spring for the PNW is the transition to spring spill operations in the hydro system and a big change took place yesterday as plenty of water was switched from generation to spill instead. But wait! Didn’t we read this blog already last week? Yes, but we can call this “Fish Spill part 2” as the transition from winter operations in the hydro system (focused on Chum incubation) to ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Apr 10, 2024 | |
| Last week Alberta called two emergency alerts and was forced to resort to shedding load as unexpected thermal outages along with poor showings from renewables created a supply shortage. The first alert came Wednesday evening. Just hours before, pool price was at $0/MWh as solar and wind were both strong in the middle of the day. As evening approached, demand was under 10 GW with temperatures higher than normal for early April. The lowered demand wasn’t enough to make up for the loss in renewables, combined with the unexpected loss of the Genesse 2 plant. Pool price shot to the $1000/MWh cap and AESO was under an EEA3 for more than an hour. Figure 1 | Market Summary – Last 7 Days The second alert came early Friday morning. Again, the wind was partly to blame. According to ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Apr 9, 2024 | |
| March 2024 was full of madness as the NCAA basketball tournaments took form for both the women and men brackets published and everyone scrambling to get flights to see their favorite team(s). If you were a student or an alum for two schools, NC State and Connecticut, the madness turned into the decision making that was formulating as both schools saw their respective teams make it to the final four for both the women’s (Cleveland) and the men’s (Phoenix). Figure 1 | March Madness No matter your choice in location or the school to which you were cheering for, the madness was real as the women’s final four championship saw the highest rating ever for a NCAA basketball game as the Iowa Hawkeyes played the undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks. Over on the ... » read more | |
| Monday Apr 8, 2024 | |
| Stretch Armstrong is a large gel-filled action figure from the 1970’s where the doll’s most notable feature is that it can be stretched from its normal size of about 15 inches to four or five feet. Figure 1 | Stretch ‘California Hydro’ Armstrong This is an incredible feat if you stop and think about it from a technology standpoint given the fact that the stretch is roughly 4 to 5 times what is normal and knowing that it reverts back to its starting shape. California hydro is going to be needing to have a little gel-filled Stretch Armstrong action this spring given the simple fact that the midday real-time prices are deeply negative with this past weekend tapping -$92.00 for an hour with several others carrying -$70 and -$80 handles. Such prices are tied to ... » read more | |
| Friday Apr 5, 2024 | |
| There is never a dull moment in the energy sectors as each regional balancing act continues to consider renewable penetration, swinging natural gas flows from maintenance/production cuts and weather conditions. EnergyGPS continues to churn out new products in the form of outright packages, individual pieces of content that display pertinent information that has an impact on the balancing mentioned and ultimately the price action in both the power and natural gas markets and our consulting work related to the renewable space. Figure 1 | CAISO Battery Breakdown – Price/Volume For starters, we rolled out the EnergyGPS Battery Package at the start of April where we rolled it into the eCommerce Platinum Plus product offering that can be found by clicking on the link provided. The ... » read more | |