The last 10 days of July 2024 were like a roller coaster when it comes to the net loading within ERCOT.  The two main culprits were tethered to Mother Nature where modest weather shifted the load profile slightly lower while the winds picked up to drive the generation profile to July highs.  Throwing in the solar profile into the midday block of hours had the balancing act moving out of the natural gas stack and needing to curtail the renewable components for a good number of hours.  We say this because the price action was such that had the midday hours sitting around $0.00 while the wind was blowing, and the loads were modest.

Figure 1 | ERCOT Net Load and North Hub Price Levels - Hourly

We have highlighted the 26^th through the 29^th, which is when the midday price action across the key gen hubs was muted due to the net load being pushed down by the renewable presence.  Things started to change in August as the wind was expected to taper off and power demand started to rise which then took the net load numbers up by 6-7 GWa.  This was enough to allow the sun’s rays to hit the panels and produce the megawatts.  When it was all said and done, ERCOT saw a new solar generation output record with the 31^st tapping 20.3 GW.