Featured Articles
| Thursday Jun 11, 2015 | |
| With the latest heat wave moving through the West Coast, demand across the Pacific Northwest and California jumped up quite a bit as Portland saw high temperatures in the mid 90's for both Sunday and Monday while Sacramento was in the triple digits (104 degrees) in the middle of the afternoon. This type of heat led to the load profiles in each region to shift up to mid-summer like levels. Figure 1 | California Peak Load - Forecast vs Actual As you can see in the Figure 1, the actual peak demand came in much higher than the forecast. In fact, it was so ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Jun 10, 2015 | |
| Back in college, we rented a house that has its garage in the backyard. The only way you could get to it was through the alley drive path that separated you from your neighbors behind you. Since that is where you put out the garbage once a week for pick up, it was quite often you would meet the other college kids renting around you. After a couple of months, the weekly garbage take out routine morphed into what became known as the 'Rally in the Alley' Party every Friday night. This was a fun event while it lasted, but like everything else it could ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Jun 9, 2015 | |
| With the ships heading back out to sea yesterday, the 2015 Rose Festival is in the books and the committee could not have asked for a better two and a half weeks. If anyone has lived in the Portland long enough, the slogan 'it always rains during Rose Festival' has held true over the years. Not this year, as the beginning part of the festival, there was nothing but blue skies and moderate temperatures. It was only last week Monday/Tuesday did any real rain actually hit the area. That was quickly replaced by the scorching heat we saw move into ... » read more | |
| Monday Jun 8, 2015 | |
| Last week's EIA number showed record high injections of 132 BCF during the week ending 5/29, putting total storage to 2,233 BCF. Stepping back, this put the previous four week injection average to 16.0 BCF/D. In comparison, during this same stretch the prior year, injections averaged 15.8 BCF/D. This 0.2 BCF/D increase in injections is a key indicator of how the current supply/demand balance compares to previous years. An increase in injections means the supply side of the equation is increasing relative to the demand side, and vice versa. Thus the 0.2BCF/D increase ... » read more | |
| Friday Jun 5, 2015 | |
| Portland’s Rose Festival has just started bringing in 12 ships on the Willamette River, from US Coast board, US Navy Vessels to the Royal Canadian Navy. The local news is reporting the low river levels on the Willamette are causing some of the larger ships to anchor in the middle of the river instead of the banks of the river. The vessels will be linked with scaffolding so visitors will have to walk across smaller ships to reach ships in the middle of the river. How low is the Willamette? See Figure 1 below. Figure ... » read more | |
| Thursday Jun 4, 2015 | |
| As we head into the first full weekend of June, I thought it would be a good time to check in on the health of the California generation stack. Let us first start by taking a look at the hydro situation. As we have mentioned in the past, the California drought like year is in its 4th year. For the past three years in the fall, we start out the conversation by saying with last year under our belt, this upcoming year cannot be much worse. The issue is it has with this year coming in even lower than last year, from a snow water equivalent. Figure 1 | ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Jun 3, 2015 | |
| It felt a little weird putting on the waterproof rain jacket as I left the house the past couple of days. In a normal spring, this would not be an uncommon occurrence as the early part of June usually brings some sort of rain event. But prior to Monday and Tuesday's thunder and lightning storms, this winter and spring have both presented nothing but warm and dry conditions. Over the past few months, we have continued to discuss how the high pressure system that not moving off the Pacific Northwest coast is bringing us nothing but above normal ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Jun 2, 2015 | |
| The EIA released the Natural Gas monthly on Friday, the 29th of May. This report provides in depth data on supply, demand, and storage on a two month lag. The most recent report therefore covered through the end of March 2015, giving an updated picture of what’s going on in the system. Analyzing this report, we first started by looking at consumption and storage data for March. In addition, the production appeared to fall sharply for the quarter thanks to revised data, however the decline is likely a statistical quirk rather than genuine change. Consumption ... » read more | |
| Monday Jun 1, 2015 | |
| When you watch a horse race of any magnitude, the first 3/4 of a mile is designed around each jockey trying to get their horse in position for the final big push as they come around the final turn and make their way to the finish line. Since they all have to get to the same destination, there are some horses that have to put on an all out sprint while others are just trying to hold on. So what does this have to do with West Power, in particular the Pacific Northwest, you should ask? Since we are into June now, the Pacific Northwest's hydro year is on the final ... » read more | |
| Friday May 29, 2015 | |
| Yesterday’s EIA storage number showed an injection of 112 BCF, which was about 7 BCF above expectations. The 1 BCF/D excess was a bearish price signal to the market and in turn the prompt month (now July) ended up trading down $0.135 or about 5%. Prior to July being the prompt month, it traded between the $2.784 and $3.07 marks for the month of May. The shift down yesterday sliced right through the lower end of the band as it ended up settling just under the $2.71 mark. Figure 1 | July Henry Hub Settle Prices prior to it being prompt month ... » read more | |
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