Featured Articles
| Tuesday Feb 21, 2017 | |
| Those of us who live in the Pacific Northwest try to find every excuse around this time of year to head down to the Southern part of California for a little sunshine and warmer weather. That is not the case this year as California continues to get hit with massive storms across the entire state. For example, a friend of mine was flying to Los Angeles for the long weekend to spend some time with friends in and around Long Beach. I got a text from him on Friday night stating his flight was delayed by 3:30 out of Portland due to the heavy showers ... » read more | |
| Friday Feb 17, 2017 | |
| I have always been intrigued by the phrase “Smart Grid.” It is one of those buzz phrases that people use that could mean almost anything. Simply Googling the phrase brings up a number of definitions. Here are two: “an electricity supply network that uses digital communications technology to detect and react to local changes in usage.” or “Smart grid generally refers to a class of technology people are using to bring utility electricity delivery systems into the 21st century, using computer-based remote control and automation.” No ... » read more | |
| Thursday Feb 16, 2017 | |
| With the flows shifting up over the weekend and into the early part of this week, we started to see some lack of market/lack of turbine capacity spill at several of the dams along the Lower Columbia and Snake River basins. All four of the dams on the Lower Columbia showed spill for the purposes of lack of turbine capacity. Figure 1 | Lower Columbia Flows and Spill - Hourly This was confirmed on yesterday's TMT call at the very end of the meeting. The spill was not due to lack of market as the price in the market was still attractive to a ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Feb 15, 2017 | |
| Brayton Point Power Station is the largest coal plant in New England and consists of three units combing for 1,200 MWs of coal generation plus a 4th, 475 MW, oil fired unit. In late 2013 the facility owners announced that the coal unit would be retired in early 2017 which meant the end of coal generation in Massachusetts. The planned retirement has remained on schedule and is currently expected to shut its doors sometime this March. As many of our readers are aware, New England sees some of the highest energy costs in the winter thanks to low natural gas ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Feb 14, 2017 | |
| This morning, almost every written publication across the country has some coverage of the Oroville spillway issues. To recap, the flooding and spillway damage would never occurred if California hadn't received a large amount of precipitation. Since October 1, almost all of the climate stations across Northern California are posting readings that are well above normal. After seeing so many years of drought, it has been a welcome sight to have full reservoirs. The problem is that the Department of Water Resources didn't keep outflows from the Oroville Dam ... » read more | |
| Monday Feb 13, 2017 | |
| The weather forecasts from various vendors have been showing quite of bit of red in the 8-14 day period and/or the 6-10/11-15 day periods across most of the Lower 48. Figure 1 | NOAA 8-14 Day Temperature Forecast Since it is only the middle of February, the warmer temperatures have shifted the overall rescom demand quite a bit lower in several regions east of the Mississippi and Texas. In the West, temperatures continue to be slightly below normal but with the highest renewable energy penetration (due to California's RPS) the net thermal demand from power ... » read more | |
| Friday Feb 10, 2017 | |
| With little fanfare, Washington State implemented new carbon rules in January of 2017. The new rules, which were promulgated through the Washington Department of Ecology, apply to about 25 major emitters, including the state's five oil refineries and all major natural gas electricity generators. The rules are an exercise in gradualism, where large GHG emitters must reduce emissions by 1.7% annually. While this program certainly is not ambitious in terms of required carbon reductions, under certain conditions it could result in the price of carbon being reflected in ... » read more | |
| Thursday Feb 9, 2017 | |
| We sent out a market flash yesterday afternoon detailing the enormous amount of precipitation the state of California has been getting, especially Northern California as of late. Per CDEC, the current precipitation level has surpassed last year's aggregated total for the entire water year. Some forecasters are calling for more precipitation after a little reprieve over the weekend. Figure 1 | Precipitation Forecast for the 1-15 Day Period - California The massive precipitation has led to several inches of rain hitting the already saturated ground as ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Feb 8, 2017 | |
| Heading into this winter we saw record high gas storage at facilities across North America. Alberta storage was no exception as we rolled into October with over 420 MMCF in the ground which was 40 MMCF more than last year and 90 MMCF above 2015 levels. Figure 1 | AB Storage Total NG Storage Considering the unprecedented amount of natural gas in the ground both producers and storage facility operators hoped for an especially strong demand this winter or else the lack of storage space would limit flexibility moving ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Feb 7, 2017 | |
| Looking at the Northeast and Midwest portions of the country, we are starting to see a similar theme. Storage levels are on par with last year while underlying demand wanes with the gas to coal substitution in the power generation dispatch. As we look forward, this drop in power burns can be extrapolated right into the Q2 horizon. If those areas remain low, we will see storage injections outpace last year's rate. Figure 1 | Northeast and Midwest Power Burns But with little additional transportation flows down to the Gulf and South Central portions of the ... » read more | |
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