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| Tuesday Feb 18, 2025 | |
| The SPP grid has seen significant shifts as February progresses as highlighted in our latest report titled “Growing Resurgence Tied to SPP”, with coal-fired generation making a notable comeback. While solar power continues its steady growth, cooler temperatures and increased demand have led to a surge in coal usage. Wind generation has been underwhelming compared to the past two years, causing net load to rise. This dynamic has prompted interesting changes in thermal generation, particularly in February, where coal output has nearly doubled compared to the previous year. These shifts hint at larger trends shaping the region's energy landscape. Figure 1 | SPP 12x24 Profile A closer look at thermal generation reveals a coal-to-natural-gas ratio shift. For much of 2024, natural ... » read more | |
| Monday Feb 17, 2025 | |
| One topic of frequent discussion on the virtual energy industry water cooler as of late has been CAISO’s proposed Extended Day Ahead Energy Market (EDAM). Billed as an addition to the extant Western Energy Imbalance Market, this would create a framework for voluntary day ahead trading across the West’s many electricity fiefdoms. However, it has faced a recent increase in scrutiny as a January PacifiCorp filing, and now a detailed report from PowerX, pointed out a baked-in market failure which would result in a significant transfer of capital for the West at large into California Figure 1 | Electricity Parallel Flow[1] The key concept to understanding the market failure is parallel flows, also known as loop flows. It is convenient to think of electrical transmissions as ... » read more | |
| Friday Feb 14, 2025 | |
| With 2024 data complete, EGPS presented this week its annual "Renewables Award" publication (included in each of the EnergyGPS eCommerce Packages offered to interested parties), where it provides an overview of the highs and lows for regions and technologies in this past year and presenting individual “Renewies” for various categories. In our report, and at the imaginary gala-awards ceremony dinner that went with it, we awarded the Most and Least Valuable Generation-Weighted Prices, Capture Ratio Leaders and Laggards, and Market Share Big Kahunas and Comeback Kids. The results for 2024 are shown below in Figure 1. Figure 1 | Renewies 2024 Summary Although 2024 wasn’t quite the blowout year that 2023 was, especially in ERCOT, it was a solid ... » read more | |
| Thursday Feb 13, 2025 | |
| While southern California—and the Palisades in particular—have been subject to catastrophic wildfires and very dry weather conditions, further north within the same state, California has enjoyed healthy precipitation and snowfall. The figure below shows two images from our California Snow Water Dashboard, which plots daily total snow water equivalent by region. The North versus South difference is shown below and illustrates the stark divide in precipitation across the state so far in 2025. Starting in the North, snow accumulated quickly in December and took another big step upward at the beginning of February to keep total snowpack right in line with the historical average (and ahead of 2024 at this point in the water year). By contrast, in the South ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Feb 12, 2025 | |
| We have all been in a situation where someone has said, “just close your eyes and imagine……”. When you open them back up, life goes back to what it was but for a moment there was this imagery of peer bliss if you picture the sandy beaches on an island somewhere in the world or enjoying a trip to a popular destination of choice. In the energy space, it is hard to imagine a world without renewables as the penetration levels have turned into a transition period where many ISOs have reached into the Phase 2 bucket where curtailments are a common theme, especially during the midday block of hours as the sun shines and the solar generation comes in the form or rooftop and industrial-sized farms placed strategically across the country. Figure 1 | Close Your ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Feb 11, 2025 | |
| In our latest renewable monthly report, we discuss how January set the stage for 2025 in U.S. renewable energy markets, highlighting key trends in generation, demand, and pricing. CAISO saw relatively mild weather conditions, allowing solar generation to surge. However, this expansion also brought challenges such as curtailments and pricing impacts. Wind generation remained consistent, while battery storage played a vital role in energy dispatch despite some disruptions. Figure 1. CAISO Average Hourly Wind and Solar Generation (MW) In ERCOT, cold weather events influenced demand, leading to notable shifts in energy consumption. Wind and solar continued their upward trajectory, reinforcing their growing role in the region’s energy mix. Battery storage also showed increased ... » read more | |
| Monday Feb 10, 2025 | |
| Here in Portland’s winters, when we have suffered through months of rain, cold, and short days, people start dreaming of more southerly latitudes. We start researching vacations to Mexico’s jungles, Arizona’s deserts, or California’s beaches. It would seem our power sector is doing just about the same, as many of the MWs we are using to stave away the cold are arriving from our warmer neighbor. Although, with resulting spikes in energy prices, participants in PNW power markets likely have more headaches than dreams due to the Golden State. Figure 1 | PNW Temperature Forecast and Difference From Normal It is easy to describe the Pacific Northwest winters, at least along the I-5 corridor, in just three words: 50's and rainy. That description, however, does not ... » read more | |
| Friday Feb 7, 2025 | |
| Forest Park is one of the crown jewels of Portland. It is one of the country’s largest urban forest reserves. It covers about 5,200 acres on a hill that starts just above downtown Portland and goes many miles to the north. The iconic Rose Garden sits on the southern end, just up the hill from downtown. The northern end of Forest Park sits above an industrial area that runs along the Willamette River. Just a few hundred feet from the northern portion of the park sits Portland’s garbage processing facility as well as many acres of oil tanks. There are also two major electricity transmission right of ways which cut directly through the park. There is substantial energy infrastructure at the bottom of the northern part of the park. And there are large load centers sitting in ... » read more | |
| Thursday Feb 6, 2025 | |
| Renewables are off to a strong start in 2025 after rapid growth during the previous year in markets across the country from CAISO in the West to ERCOT in the South Central and over to MISO and PJM in the Midwest/Northeast. Renewables have been showing out to start off the new year, and our latest Monthly report (part of our eCommerce Platinum package) goes into the impact of renewables so far in 2025. The massive growth in solar coupled with strong wind kept lower 48 net load numbers low compared to January of 2024 despite the strongest monthly total HDDs of the past 10+ years, with ERCOT as a perfect example of how the growth has played out. Figure 1 | ERCOT 12x24 Profiles The figure above plots average hourly load, renewable generation, and net load by month from 2023 through the ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Feb 5, 2025 | |
| With Portland’s first potential snowfall this week, it’s hard to imagine that shoulder season is just around the corner. In Texas, however, it might seem much more reasonable as highs of 80 degrees rule the temperature forecasts this week. For nuclear plants across the country, preparation for outage season is already in full swing. The first few nuclear plants have started to power down with generation slowly dropping from 100% online. Throughout the spring, they will spend up to a month or more completely offline to perform necessary maintenance as part of their refueling cycles. The first is scheduled to begin as soon as next week. Here at EnergyGPS, we monitor nuclear outages in several dashboards, including our NRC Nuclear Plant Summary dashboard. The figure below is ... » read more | |