Cinco De Mayo is upon us, and the celebration is one where the words ‘serve up the next round’ resonates for those who choose to participate in the festivities.  The energy sector drums up its own celebration events where Mother Nature bring the heat, the rescom and industrial-sized demand tap into increased power demand while renewables tend to falter under such conditions.  Each component on its own is not too potent but when you combine the three, especially in ERCOT, the go to price cocktail is known as ‘Volatility’.

Figure 1 | ERCOT Net Load – Topping the 44 GW mark

Per several of our ERCOT Market Flash pieces of content, which are part of the Enterprise South Central Sub-Package, we have discussed how the ERCOT net load hitting north of 44 GW in the spring months starts to put upward pressure on the supply stack as several units are still offline for maintenance work.