Featured Articles
| Wednesday Mar 23, 2016 | |
| While a lot of discussion has taken place about Aliso Canyon. and the lack of storage space for the summer injection season. Eyes have to turn to PG&E storage because they also have a storage capacity issue. When Aliso Canyon storage went down with a well leak issue around the facility, Socal Gas was mandated to withdraw gas from the cavern. That extra gas combined with a moderate winter and an abundance of wind and solar (renewable) energy kept PG&E system inventory high for all of the first quarter of this year. In Figure 1 below, you can see where PG&E ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Mar 22, 2016 | |
| Over the past couple of years, the term 'Duck Curve' has been thrown around the when discussing the solar penetration in the CAISO market. This is where, the middle of the day solar profile ramps up and knocks out thermal generation and the implied heat rate shifts down. When this occurs it leaves the morning and evening ramp hours exposed to quick ramping/more expensive units to balance the grid. As a result, the morning ramp hours are somewhere between the middle of the day belly and the higher priced evening ramp hours. Figure 1 | Example of Duck ... » read more | |
| Monday Mar 21, 2016 | |
| Coming out of the weekend, the CAISO DA clears for today came in quite a bit lower than expectations, especially in SP15 where the heavy load cleared $17.67 or a 7.90 implied heat rate. NP15 came in $4.03 higher as some nomogram and Paci congestion constrained the flows S to N on Path 15 and N to S on the Paci line. Looking at the data, a couple of things stood out. First, the overall load was moderate as Southern California is looking at high temperatures in the low/mid 70's. Figure 1 | Burbank Temperatures - Actual and Forecast Second, virtual supply ... » read more | |
| Friday Mar 18, 2016 | |
| Since the beginning of the month the Algonquin cash basis a ticked downward as load came off and temperatures rose in New England. Algonquin Citygates is considered one of, if not the, premium priced hubs for natural gas in the country as the strong demand and relatively low capacity can drive large and volatile price spreads. Typically we see Algonquin Citygates price above Henry hub, however since March 8th the basis has been negative with Algonquin gas settling near $1. Figure 1 | Algonquin Citygates Cash Prices vs Henry Hub March 2016 - ... » read more | |
| Thursday Mar 17, 2016 | |
| Survive and Advance It’s tournament time people! Time to sit back and enjoy the dance which will unfold in front of our eyes over the next few weeks. As I sit here writing this newsletter I’m watching the ESPN “30 for 30” story about the North Carolina State 1983 championship team coached by Jim Valvano. Sports create wonderful storylines, and this NC State team represents one of the best. NC State had to win nine straight do-or-die games starting with the ACC tournament on their way to the NCAA championship. They beat Virginia with ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Mar 16, 2016 | |
| EGPS Newsletter | Midwest Coal to Natural Gas Switching Wednesday March 16, 2016 This past winter has been the warmest winter on record for the Lower 48 states. As a result of this warmth, the year on year storage surplus has grown to more than 900 BCF. This surplus along with persistent production growth has pushed cash natural gas prices down to marginal cost at most basis locations in an attempt to incentivize production shut ins or new power burns. This recent price action is causing the pipeline system to rebalance itself. Production is coming off, storage fields ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Mar 15, 2016 | |
| With all the precipitation hitting Northern California over the past couple of weeks, Sunday/Monday culminated into Shasta seeing its highest inflows since 2005. Figure 1 | Northern California Hydro Dam Flows - Daily As you can see in Figure 1, yesterday topped the 77 kcfs mark, which is over double what we saw last week and 17 kcfs more than Saturday. What you also see is the outflows at Shasta still have not changed as they are still storing as much water as they can. This is reflected in the daily elevation levels posted. Figure 2 | Shasta ... » read more | |
| Monday Mar 14, 2016 | |
| The last couple of weeks have been a very exciting time for energy policy in the Northwest. The enviros have much to celebrate. First the Oregon pro-RPS, anti-coal legislation was signed into law by Governor Kate Brown. Then on Friday the FERC issued an order denying the Jordan Cove Energy Project’s application under section 3 of the Natural Gas Act and Parts 153 and 380 of the Commission’s regulations to site, construct, and operate a LNG export terminal in Coos Bay Oregon. The FERC order makes for interesting reading. There were two applications in front ... » read more | |
| Friday Mar 11, 2016 | |
| EGPS Newsletter | NOAA Recap NOAA released their winter assessment on Tuesday confirming that this winter was the warmest on record for the lower 48 states. Figure 1 | Dec 2015 – Feb 2016 Temperature Departures from Average You can see in Figure 1, there was not a single state that posted an average temperature below climatology normals between December and February. At the beginning of the winter season, there was all this talk of a strong El Nino pattern that would continue to influence weather events. This forward view was on the heals of ... » read more | |
| Thursday Mar 10, 2016 | |
| With another set of storms moving through the Pacific Northwest starting today and the overnight lows inching upward, the region is going to see its supply/demand picture shift quite a bit in the coming days. First, load shifts down come the weekend and with daylight savings on the docket for Sunday early AM, the load profile will continue to swing lower during the evening ramp as the daytime hours will get longer. Figure 1 | BPA Load and Wind Profile - Hourly Second, the wind generation is going to be volatile with the storms. As you can see in Figure 1 ... » read more | |
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