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| Wednesday Nov 3, 2021 | |
| ERCOT real-time market prices in Monday’s trading saw a resurgence in volatility after the previous week of relative calm. In the span of just two hours, prices across ERCOT went from double-digit handles to more than $500, the highest price in a week and second strongest print since mid-August. In the days preceding the event, we discussed with clients in our ERCOT Daily Dashboard commentary that there would be a handful of factors that would collude to create a price surge but pointed out that one of the major drivers would be a large swing in wind generation. This week’s wind swings are instructive as they’re typical of this time of year and sit within market participants’ memory of last February’s Deep Freeze event that obliterated ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Nov 2, 2021 | |
| This week the California Public Utilities Commission has a a couple of voting measures on the docket that have the chance to alter the current reliability concerns for the gas delivery in the state. On the November 4th meeting there are two separate proposals to increase the working gas capacity at the beleaguered Aliso Canyon storage cavern. The first Proposed Decision (PD) would move the current inventory limit from 34 to 68 BCF which is the level recommended by an independent study to assure enough in ground supply for Southern California based on the current pipeline import capacity. There is another Alternate Decision (AD) that would increase the inventory from 34 to 41 BCF assuming the import limits would be increased this winter. The increase in storage capacity is deemed ... » read more | |
| Monday Nov 1, 2021 | |
| The transition from Halloween to the month of November has so many things going for it as many of our youth stockpiled miniature candy bars for the rest of the year while the older generation partied like it was 1999 (if your costume was that of Prince) on Saturday night knowing that the official holiday was on Sunday where work on Monday is in play. During the day, the winds picked up to blow the once raked leaf piles over to the neighbors yard as well as dropping more from the sky. As I walked around the neighborhood, there were a few families that raked up all the leaves into one big pile and their young kids were joyfully jumping up and down with a big smile. Figure 1 | Fall is Upon Us – October to November In the energy sector, this time of year symbolizes ... » read more | |
| Friday Oct 29, 2021 | |
| The Northwest Power Pool (NWPP) recently announced its Resource Adequacy (RA) program. Our NWPP RA Top 10 Takeaways newsletter provided an overview and covered key takeaways from the program design ranging from load forecasting to hydro accounting. In this article, we will dive deeper into a couple of the metrics embedded in determining reliability, namely Loss of Load Expectation (LOLE) and Effective Load Carrying Capability (ELCC). The NWPP RA program has momentum and continues down its path toward implementation. The proposed footprint for the program has grown beyond the NWPP to balancing authorities in other regions. With its broader geographic footprint, the effort has a new name that better reflects its aspirations – the Western Resource Adequacy Program aka ... » read more | |
| Thursday Oct 28, 2021 | |
| The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) took a big sigh of relief yesterday as the day-ahead auction clear posted little congestion between the two gen hubs (NP15/SP15). Per our daily reporting, the conversation around the Los Banos nomogram constraint has been at the forefront as there have been days that drive SP15 over $20 on average across the heavy load below that of NP15. This in turn pushes the SP15 well below that of the Midc heavy load bilateral price as well. Figure 1 | CAISO Day-Ahead Auction Breakdown – Heavy Load As you can see in the table above, the 23rd showed a spread delta of $17.20 only to dip down a bit the following two days but by Tuesday (26th) the congestion increased and the spread moved back out to $18.81. Since that time, the ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Oct 27, 2021 | |
| Daily feedgas deliveries to U.S. LNG export terminals have been highly variable the past few weeks, but that should quiet down as seasonal maintenance and operational issues wind down before the winter demand season begins. As the winter unfolds, exports are expected to be record-setting strong as the economics to ship are highly favorable for exporters. Longer-term prospects for more growth have also been enhanced lately with a series of recent developments for terminals under construction and others under consideration. Watchers of EGPS’ daily North America Daily LNG dashboard and Daily S&D report have noticed feedgas deliveries to U.S. LNG export terminals have been showing some wild swings the past few weeks. Since last Tuesday alone flows have ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Oct 26, 2021 | |
| Each spring and fall the nuclear generation fleet all over the continent rotates out a number of units for seasonal refueling. This year in particular has been more intense than others with total outages eclipsing 22 GWa. In previous years this would have put more burden on both the coal and natural gas dispatch in order to make up for the loss of baseload power on the grid. This year happens to be very different from years past. Coal generation is not the dominant fuel in the generation stack. Retirements and added emissions costs have pushed natural gas generation ahead in the merit order. This is being reflected in the October power burns data which has seen no significant drop off from the past two years despite the doubling of the fuel costs. Figure 1 | NRC ... » read more | |
| Monday Oct 25, 2021 | |
| If you like to travel and head to some remote place surrounded by water, the HGTV show Island Life is on your radar screen as each season and subsequent episodes detail what options are available within an operating budget of the buyers. There are budget friendly options tied to condominiums for those who want low maintenance while basking in the sun and listening to the waves of the ocean or sea. If you have a healthier budget and want to take on the challenges of maintaining some land along with the pool and building structures high above the waters, there is always a place of your liking. Figure 1 | Island Life - The Show When it comes to the energy space, specifically electricity, the grid is designed to take on all types of challenges including loop flow, unplanned ... » read more | |
| Friday Oct 22, 2021 | |
| Earlier this week, we wrote about the uptick in CAISO curtailments, particularly for solar. For most of 2021, curtailments have been in line with or even somewhat below curtailments for 2020, and until recently the total volume of curtailments was comfortably below the total volume this time last year. However, starting around the 9th of October, there was a noteworthy sharp uptick that has brought total curtailments rapidly up to 2020 levels: Figure 1: Cumulative Curtailments in the CAISO This image shows total cumulative curtailments in the CAISO for 2018-present (both solar and wind are included). Until very recently, the blue line for 2021 tracked with or slightly under the yellow line for 2020. Most of the recent, rapid increase is driven by solar curtailments. Figure 2 ... » read more | |
| Thursday Oct 21, 2021 | |
| Any subscribers to our Platinum Renewables package who have been keeping and eye on the CAISO Daily Battery Dashboard may have noticed something strange lately. On that dashboard, we report the revenue opportunity that would be available to a 4-hour battery across several different markets: Figure 1 | SP15 Battery Revenue Streams - Real Time/Day Ahead/Regulation This chart puts revenue from energy and ancillary markets in common units ($/kW-mn), so they can be compared to each other and to capital costs of future batteries more easily. Historically, there has been 3-4 times as much revenue potential in the regulation markets as there is in energy markets, but it seems like every time the dashboard refreshes that gap has shrunk a little bit further in SP15. The ... » read more | |