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| Thursday Jan 25, 2024 | |
| The push in ERCOT to expand solar capacity has been rapid and relentless over the past year, with massive increases year-over-year in the volume of MW from the resource that made their way onto the grid. The hopes that renewable growth can cut through the haze of carbon emissions from the state’s thermal fleet is being put to the test this winter as ERCOT has set several consecutive new records for winter load, topping out at over 78.1 GW back on the 16th. Figure 1 | A Smoky Solar Backdrop The events of the recent winter storm were the cherry on the top of a trend that has been showing up since late last year when it comes to the ERCOT thermal stack as the ISO’s supply stack has been faced with greater challenges than in years past when it comes to net ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Jan 24, 2024 | |
| With the arrival of warmer weather, the impressive draw down in natural gas in the SoCal gas caverns is slowing. The figure below shows year-on-year storage levels for SoCal with the steepest portion in green representing January 2024 so far. For the first three weeks of this year, SoCal was withdrawing close to 1 BCF a day. In comparison, the same dates in January 2023 withdrew less than 0.2 BCF a day and the same dates in 2022 added a total of 0.2 BCF. Compared to other high demand events, a few weeks in December 2022 withdrew around 0.8 BCF a day and another few weeks in February 2023 withdrew around 0.76 BCF a day. So far this month has been an impressive run that puts SoCal storage at 84 BCF on January 23rd of this year, more than 20 BCF lower than the level at the end of ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Jan 23, 2024 | |
| Extreme weather grabs the attention of everyone given the tightness tied to both the electricity and natural gas landscapes. When you drill down to the regional level, we have the market surveillance committees, Independent System Operators and regulatory/political entities sitting in the front row watching every move. Now that Mother Nature has pulled away from the coldest temperatures of the season and is showing nothing but warmer weather on the horizon, the conditions do not warrant the same oversight. Figure 1 | Extreme Weather EnergyGPS likes to think that the market always has something to discuss when it comes to the fundamental supply/demand drivers that impact the regional markets mentioned. Our oversight is to scour the information that might have an ... » read more | |
| Monday Jan 22, 2024 | |
| Now that most of the country is reaching the tail end of the coldest weather of the winter season, many will be wrapping their heads around how the system fared on both the electricity and natural gas fronts. ERCOT was getting a lot of press heading into the winter storm as much preparation was put into play since Storm Uri hit back in February 2021. Figure 1 | Texas Wrapped in the Cold Weather Pattern The other region that had a lot of eyes on it was the Pacific Northwest as this was where the colder weather all started as we saw temperatures nosedive in Western Canada, both Portland and Seattle shift into single digits with wind chill accounted for and the Rockies take it on the chin as negative average temperatures hit parts of its region. The coldness led to ... » read more | |
| Friday Jan 19, 2024 | |
| The recent weather pattern in the Pacific Northwest covered the entire region as Western Canada was looking at record temperatures where some places were showign -40 degrees before wind chill. The US portion of the Lower 48 was frigid all the way from Seattle/Tacoma, down to Northern California and over to the Rockies. The weather has subsided for most major demand areas throughout the regions mentioned but there is one sub-region that is still getting iced over given the unique conditions tied to precipitation and wind pattern, that place is Portland, OR. Figure 1 | Portland, OR - Iced Over As of Thursday night, the driveways and sidewalks that were shoveled were now layered with a sheet of ice that was basically invisible as the precipitation was in the form of ... » read more | |
| Thursday Jan 18, 2024 | |
| Over the past week the hydro system in the Pacific Northwest was put to the test given the frigid weather conditions across the country but especially here in the PNW, where the cold brought demand up to record levels across the region. The situation was exacerbated by the disruption at the Jackson Prairie facility on Saturday that gave everyone a scare as the grid was relying on gas generation operating at full capacity with the other constraints in place—namely the derates on the transmission lines, cold sitting heavily over BC, Alberta, and the Rockies, and the conditions at play in the hydro system. The talk at last week’s TMT surrounding the coming cold was the plan to attempt to maintain Grand Coulee dam releases at minimum required levels to support the ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Jan 17, 2024 | |
| Over the course of four days, AESO called a series of four emergency alerts with the first coming on Friday evening and the last on Monday morning. AESO was narrowly able to avoid rolling blackouts but did send out notices to Albertans to conserve power where possible. Conditions over the weekend created the perfect storm as demand was high with bone-chilling cold, transmission was limited, and renewables were out of the picture. The figure below shows a snippet of AESO’s event log from the weekend. The emergency alert level 3, depicted twice, is the highest level of emergency alert while the EEA0 represents when the emergency event is over. Figure 1 | Snippet of AIES Event Log from this Weekend (aeso.ca) The cold started last week with average temperatures well below 0 degrees F ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Jan 16, 2024 | |
| The long weekend was filled with cold weather across North America with the initial blast working through the Pacific Northwest and the Rockies. By Saturday night, the Midwest was joining in on the party. If you watched any of the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Miami Dolphins football game in Kansas City, the temperature at kickoff speaks for itself. The game was the 4th coldest game ever played, which is another indication of the extreme cold front in play. By the time Sunday rolled around, the Dallas Cowboy vs. Green Bay Packer football fans were glad the game was indoors as the Dallas temperatures were plummeting to the lower 20’s as a high. This culminated to the coldest stretch of days since Storm Uri as Monday morning saw wind chill adjusted temperatures ... » read more | |
| Friday Jan 12, 2024 | |
| The generation fleet in the WECC is steadily changing with the retirement of coal plants and once-through-cooling (OTC) natural gas plants coupled with the addition of solar, wind, and storage facilities. The pace of this change will impact just about every energy-related commodity in the WECC. Coal retirements are immediately replaced with higher natural gas generation. Renewable additions will chip away at gas market share and demand for natural gas. If renewable generation can’t be built in time to meet the regulatory deadlines, it will put upward pressure on REC and carbon prices. Energy and capacity prices will obviously be impacted by this evolving supply and demand. In 2022 Energy GPS prepared a study for the Northwest River Partners titled “Lower Snake River Dams Power ... » read more | |
| Thursday Jan 11, 2024 | |
| The Pacific Northwest is the foremost market to watch in the West as the current cold weather pattern descends up on the United States. With Mid-C trading over $900 for today and things only getting tighter in the coming days, the PNW is where the action is. The Northwest also hosts the latest newcomer to the carbon reduction game with the Washington State Carbon Program now into its second year of existence. In our latest Newsletter Special Report, “Meet in the Middle”, we delve into the evolution of the program and market fundamentals at play in the Northwest behind it, starting with PNW hydro. The market fundamentals are tied to the electricity, transportation, and industrial sector where the first part of 2023 was displaying a price signal that matched up ... » read more | |