Featured Articles
| Monday Jun 27, 2016 | |
| California utilities have been net importers of power since the beginning of electricity trade. Large central power stations in the southwest have fed power into southern California for decades. Northwest utilities have shipped excess power down the AC intertie since the 1960s. Over the years California utilities became very astute buyers. I still remember the days in the mid-1990’s when Southern California Edison would brashly play sellers off of each other to negotiate the best price. If you refused to bend to their conditions they’d fire up their own ... » read more | |
| Friday Jun 24, 2016 | |
| This week Tesla Motors Inc. announced its purchase of SolarCity in a proposed all-stock deal that values SolarCity at up to $2.8 billion which represents a premium of 20% to 30%. The news was not exactly cheered by Tesla investors – with Tesla shares down over 10% since announcing the purchase. The media has covered this story pretty well, with a number of good articles and opinion pieces appearing in the trade press as well as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and LA Times. There are so many interesting storylines here that it is hard to know where to ... » read more | |
| Thursday Jun 23, 2016 | |
| With the recent trend up in both the overall power demand across the country, something had to give in the way of more natural gas fired generation turning on or coal units ramping up to help balance the grid across the country. Figure 1 | Net Load - 7 Day Rolling Flat Average Looking at the regional temperature breakout, the Desert Southwest and Southern California saw record highs with former hitting the 120 degree mark early in the week while Burbank came in around 112 degrees. In the Midwest it was hot and humid from Minneapolis down through Cleveland. » read more | |
| Wednesday Jun 22, 2016 | |
| PG&E has announced plans to retire both Diablo Canyon nuclear facilities when their licenses expire in November 2024 and August 2025. The retirements will mark the end of the nuclear era in California after the early retirement of the SONGS nuclear facility in 2013. The Diablo Canyon nuclear facility contains two reactors both capable of generating around 1,120 MW and is located near the city of San Luis Obispo in the NP 15 system. Figure 1 - Diablo Canyon The plant has been under fire since the Fukushima nuclear disaster due to the units ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Jun 21, 2016 | |
| Last week the California Public Utilities Commission reserved June 20 - 23 on the calendar to hear oral arguments about the new PG&E rate design that is expected to get implemented this year. This new rate plan increases distribution access charges for any and all consumers connected to the PG&E gas distribution system. Anyone who uses the PG&E to get gas delivery to a facility will get an increase in rates This is a result of new pipeline safety and integrity plans that are getting implemented in the aftermath of the San Bruno explosion and fire that ... » read more | |
| Monday Jun 20, 2016 | |
| For those of you who deem yourself as veterans in the West Power markets will remember the era of the SCE limit. This was a binding constraint that was put into place by the CAISO operators to make sure there was enough power turned on within the LA Basin for what SCE deemed as reliability. Once this constraint was put into place, the spread between SP15 and NP15 blew out as there was plenty of generation on the outside looking in. This constraint was exposed when SONGS went offline and eventually the units were retired. But after the big push in the ... » read more | |
| Friday Jun 17, 2016 | |
| Here at EnergyGPS we spend a lot of time helping buyers and sellers of renewable projects analyze and parse risk. Our expertise sits at the intersection of wholesale and renewable markets. For a number of years, renewable resources operated in a parallel universe to the wholesale markets. Project developers signed long term power purchase agreements (PPA) with utilities which had compliance obligations. The traditional PPA called for the buyer to purchase unit contingent, intermittent, as-generated output at the project node. The utility would then either sell the ... » read more | |
| Thursday Jun 16, 2016 | |
| As we move into the back half of the month, the weather pattern the Desert Southwest is reverting back to what we saw earlier in the month when Phoenix was seeing highs in the 118-119 degree range. California is going to come in higher from a peak load perspective as Burbank will be hitting triple digits with some inland parts surrounding the LA Basin getting up around 103-105 degrees. Northern California is looking at triple digits as well in Sacramento. Figure 1 | Western Cities Temperatures - Daily Average Actual vs. Forecast and Compared to Normal ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Jun 15, 2016 | |
| Since June 1st Nymex natural gas Henry Hub prices have been on a resilient upward trend as both daily cash and the prompt month contract prices have seen steady gains. The month opened at $2.09 and has since traded over $2.50 for delivery today. However, the extraordinary increase in hub pricing has not translated across the entire country as basis spreads expanded with the hub. One of the most notable examples is the widening spread between HH and Dominion South. Figure 1| Henry Hub vs Dominion South - Daily Cash Price Since February ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Jun 14, 2016 | |
| The West may be cool off for now with high temperatures in the Los Angeles Basin struggling to get to 80 degrees. That is all about to change as we move into next week, where the forecast is calling for the West daytime highs will jump 20 degrees in most cities as a round of steamy hot weather moves into the region starting this Sunday. The hottest days are reserved for June 19-21 where downtown Burbank will top 103 degrees and Orange County will get to almost 110. Figure 1 | Temperature Highs in Western Cities Translating that to power demand, that would push ... » read more | |
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