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| Wednesday Dec 24, 2025 | |
| Alberta is in the middle of a bitter cold streak that’s pushing demand to new heights. In last Wednesday’s blog, we wrote about the new record level of demand set in Alberta on Thursday, December 11th. It left the previous record of 12, 384 MW far behind and soared to 12,785 MW. The following week offered a brief reprieve from the below-normal temperatures, but demand levels continued to come in strong. The figure below shows average Alberta temperature forecasts from each day going back to December 9th. The newest forecast is on the far right, showing expected average temperatures through the first 6 days of January 2026. Moving left to right shows how the forecasts have evolved. Average temperatures on the 11th came in just under the 0-degree F mark. Then last week, averages ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Dec 23, 2025 | |
| Since the final days of November, a sustained cold pattern has dominated much of the country east of the Cascades, cementing an early start to winter across the Central and Northern regions. Repeated intrusions of Arctic air kept temperatures suppressed well into the first half of December, driving elevated heating demand from the Northern Plains through the Midwest and into parts of the South Central corridor. The lack of meaningful breaks in the cold reinforced stronger-than-normal load profiles, setting the stage for tighter power and gas fundamentals as winter conditions took hold earlier than usual. Figure 1 | South Central Temperature Forecast – AG2 Trader That pattern, however, has been reversing course. Forecasts point to a pronounced warm-up building across the South ... » read more | |
| Monday Dec 22, 2025 | |
| Here at Energy GPS, we pride ourselves on the breadth of our coverage. Power and natural gas markets are increasingly complex and interconnected. No market is an island, and any part of the picture can be a struggle to understand without an eye on all connected pieces. For this reason, we have recently added new content focused on the Desert Southwest, a collection of interconnected utilities with a large thermal stack and a sizeable impact on adjacent regions, like CAISO. Figure 1 | DSW Generation Stack, Gas, Coal, & Load (MW) The figure above shows the three key generations sources in the DSW’s winter supply stack: gas, coal, and nuclear, in orange, yellow, and grey respectively. Above, in blue we see load, only slightly higher than these three resources in combination. On ... » read more | |
| Friday Dec 19, 2025 | |
| As the share of solar and battery in the CAISO capacity mix continues to grow, these two technologies are increasingly defining the energy price settlement in SP15, especially in the middle of the day, when solar drives net loads to very low levels, but charging by the battery fleet consumes huge amounts of midday energy, creating a need for energy supplied from gas, imports, or hydro where there otherwise would not be much demand Figure 1 | CAISO net load and battery dispatch by quarter and hour In the middle of the day, solar drives down net load (blue bars), but CAISO uses all that cheap energy to charge its batteries (green bars). CAISO shifts its charging pattern across the midday hours like a bucket of green charging “liquid” which fills low net loads starting from the ... » read more | |
| Thursday Dec 18, 2025 | |
| Conditions in PJM are feeling more comfortable now but the first half of the month was marked by unusually cold conditions, even for December. Several rounds of winter chill have moved into and through the region, most recently over the weekend and start of this week. A pattern has emerged in December of PJM’s actual demand on the coldest days coming in consistently well in excess of the predicted demand. Load growth in PJM has been a hot topic for over a year now with the data center expansion in the region, and the structural changes have been clearly evident when it comes to outcomes on the grid. The repeated underforecasting suggests that load growth in PJM is not slowing down anytime soon. Figure 1 | PJM Real-Time Breakdown, 12/11-12/17 The figure ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Dec 17, 2025 | |
| Last Thursday night, Alberta demand came in at 12,784 MW. Not only was this a record-breaking amount, but it was also 400 MW higher than the previous high demand point. Temperatures were quite cold with overnight lows well below 0 degrees F. While the province has been warmer than normal over the last couple days, there is more deep cold in the 15-day forecast and much more winter up ahead. In our most recent AESO Power Market Flash, we covered the conditions that led to this record-breaking event and how the grid handled the extra demand. Figure 1 | Maximum Load and Net Load by Month (2023 - 2025) Last Thursday’s demand was an example of the load growth in Alberta. The figure below plots average Calgary temperatures against average load. The blue points represent days in ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Dec 16, 2025 | |
| Western Canada is heading into one of its coldest starts to winter in recent years, with a deep freeze gripping much of Alberta and British Columbia well ahead of the holidays. Brief warm pockets around Calgary and Edmonton won’t do much to offset the broader pattern, as temperatures across the region remain locked in the negative teens to negative 20s °F. With this level of persistent cold expected to carry through Christmas, winter weather has quickly become the dominant force shaping gas market behavior across the West Canada. Figure 1 | Alberta Daily Demand and Supply Components As the cold settled in through late November and early December, Alberta’s supply–demand balance tightened noticeably. NOVA receipts have remained steady, but rising heating needs across ... » read more | |
| Monday Dec 15, 2025 | |
| Here in Portland, Oregon, we have just gotten through one atmospheric river with another one inbound. We received plenty of rain, but the downpour was even more intense in other parts of the region, with dangerous flooding in parts of Washington. This has given an immediate boost to hydro generation, as recent runoff moves through the Columbia and across the network of dams. While rain is appreciated, the true strength of this water year will hinge on snowfall. Figure 1 | Columbia Watershed Snow Water Equivalent Snowfall in the West has been hampered by above-normal temperatures. For example, despite the recent deluge in Portland, our local ski resorts on Mount Hood remain bare due to above freezing temperatures in the high mountains. Despite this, the recent atmospheric river was not a ... » read more | |
| Friday Dec 12, 2025 | |
| It's the inverse of Christmas in July: Texas is having summer weather in December. Despite being about halfway through the month of December, the ERCOT region is looking at some warmth in the forecast. Temperatures are expected to reach highs in the upper 70s by the middle of next week, and stay there for several days. Figure 1 | Houston Weather Forecast (source) The weather impacts the shape of the load profile. Typically, demand during the winter months in ERCOT has a double-peak shape—cold weather drives heating demand, which is highest in the morning and evening, as opposed to cooling demand which is higher in the middle of the day. The difference can be seen in the 12x24 load profile in the figure below: Figure 2 | ERCOT Load, 12x24 Average, 2023 – 2025 YTD As the ... » read more | |
| Thursday Dec 11, 2025 | |
| The Northeast is enjoying a bit of a breather from the blistering cold that showed up early in the week. But things should start to turn around soon as temperatures should start to ease down again today headed towards a larger drop at the start of next week. The figure below is taken from our US Degree Day Matrix and shows how the 15-day forecast for the Northeast has evolved in recent days. Over the past couple of days the projected cold has intensified for the 15th and the 16th next week, with the HDD total eclipsing the 16.3 number seen on Tuesday. Figure 1 | Northeast HDD Forecast Matrix The cold this December in the Northeast has posed some new challenges for the region compared to the past several years. As the temperature drops in New England ... » read more | |