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| Wednesday Jul 17, 2019 | |
| When Westcoast Pipeline suffered a rupture last fall the Pacific Northwest scrambled to adjust to the loss of flows into the Sumas delivery hub from Canada. The pipe which normally flowed over 1 BCF per day into the states to feed Seattle and Portland homes with heat and electricity had gone to zero. It was an all hands on deck event to make up for the single biggest source of molecules into the area just as heating load in the region was on the climb. Northwest Pipeline immediately filled to capacity drawing all it could from the Rockies. Jackson Prairie storage inventory was taken down to near zero through the winter months. And natural gas generation in the I-5 corridor was curtailed in lieu of ResCom demand. Figure 1 | Sumas Receipts From Canada It truly was a ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Jul 16, 2019 | |
| This summer has been a little off for me as there have been several friends of mine who seem to have a cold as some point over the past couple of weeks. The first couple of times I heard sneezing, I chalked it up to post-spring allergies as the season seems to get dragged out depending on the conditions in March and April. Once you realize the aches and pains that go along with the 'ahchoo' moments are real and the forehead feels hot, you know that it is not allergies and some sort of cold bug is in play. Figure 1 | Ahchoo Moment - Mother Nature has a cold I bring all this up as it seems over the past few days, Mother Nature has joined the club of catching a cold as the cumulative CDD levels have shifted lower bringing the actual temperatures much closer to normal for this ... » read more | |
| Monday Jul 15, 2019 | |
| If you are a market participant in West Power, it is hard to not notice the fact that Palo Verde's heavy load cash index is settling over SP15 by double digits. This makes alot of sense when you consider the Desert Southwest saw their daytime highs in the 110 to 115 degree range last week while Southern California was still holding near normal. Figure 1 | Phoenix Weather Forecast - Daily High/Low What does not make much sense is the fact that megawatts still move from the Desert Southwest to California at a pretty good clip despite Palo Verde being over SP15 by double digits. If you look at the figure below, the bottom two panes represent the Palo Verde and Mead transmission flows on an hourly day-ahead basis. You can see that each is trending downward over the ... » read more | |
| Friday Jul 12, 2019 | |
| We’re well into summer and we know that many of our subscribers are starting to dream of the impending summer vacation. The warmth. The relaxed clothes. The feel of sand. The taste of a pool-side cocktail. And, that perfect book. But, wait, what book should you bring along? We at Energy GPS know you’re dedicated to your craft and are likely to be more relaxed and happier reading a well-written book relevant to the world of energy, trading and data analysis than one written by, say, Nora Roberts. Books about the business of energy, economics and statistics need not be dull. The following is an intentionally non-comprehensive, subjective list of books we recommend, known as the EnergyGPS Summer Energy Reads. And what about you folks who haven’t picked ... » read more | |
| Thursday Jul 11, 2019 | |
| New England had a hard time finding gas molecules over the last several years. The lack of fuel was largely due to continuous expansions along the Algonquin Pipeline that were associated with a high amount of planned outages. However, this year the planned outages look significantly different. While there is still the Atlantic Bridge pipeline expansion that is a work in progress, capacity restrictions appear to be less severe. The increased fuel availability has also migrated into the electricity market with lower prices keeping LMPs from seeing much upside. The compressor capacity along Algonquin reflect the shift in outages. While there are a handful of interconnections that supply can flow through further north, Stony Point represents a major artery for gas flowing into the region. » read more | |
| Wednesday Jul 10, 2019 | |
| The Aliso Canyon storage cavern in Southern California happens to be one of the largest and oldest facilities in the United States. When the cavern ruptured almost four years ago it set off a chain of events that has thrown the supply demand balancing in California into chaos. The California Legislature enacted a mandate ending the caverns use in normal day to day balancing of the SoCal Gas system. Even after the site was deemed safe and reliable by the state's own engineers at the Department of Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR), its use was still restricted as an asset of last resort. As a result, SoCal Gas has had a difficult time managing system pressures. Any high demand event had the risk of causing a loss of service for the Los Angeles Basin. And because of the ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Jul 9, 2019 | |
| Coming out of the long weekend, ERCOT is playing out as expected given the warmer weather in the forecast and the higher power demand across the state of Texas. If you look at the net load (power demand minus Renewables (wind)), the grid is getting shorter by roughly 1 GWa day on day but over 7 GWa when compared to where things were last week prior to the 4th of July weekend. It all starts with the weather as temperatures have risen and the storms in the southern portion of the grid have subsided. Figure 1 | South Central Weather Forecast Matrix Taking a look at the matrix above, the horizontal dates represent the time of the forecast while the vertical axis is tied to the actual flow date for the daily forecast. As you can see, the next 48 hours has been bright red for ... » read more | |
| Monday Jul 8, 2019 | |
| Hopefully everyone enjoyed the long holiday weekend that included some fireworks on the 4th of July. In the energy markets, the fireworks included a 6.4 magnitude earthquake that shook Southern California during the morning of the 4th and aftershocks that were felt in Las Vegas a couple of days afterwards. From a grid reliability standpoint, things look to be fine as there were no notices sent out by SoCal Gas tied to the quakes. From a power standpoint, the hourly demand profile was moderate as temperatures were tempered all weekend with daytime highs in the low 80's across the region. Figure 1 | CAISO Day-Ahead Hourly Load Profile As we work our way through the West, the Pacific Northwest saw few fireworks from the power grid as wind output was strong from ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Jul 3, 2019 | |
| Coming out of the winter, Socal Gas had a couple of hurdles that needed to be addressed prior to summer. Depending on the outcome of each would impact how the market would look at the physical flow of power and what price to attach to the daily market settle. If you recall, last year saw some massive volatility as SoCal Gas added over 10 BCF of gas storage over the summer months of July and August. This brought a bid to the market as the incremental buying was during a time when the transport capacity from the Desert Southwest was limited due to constraints tied to the L235 work being performed. Mother Nature also had a say in things as the month of July was one of the warmest on record in Southern California. In fact, it was about this time last year where ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Jul 2, 2019 | |
| The Midwest is seeing its first heat event of the year this week. Temperatures have soared into the low 90's and with the saturated ground from the record breaking rains the heat indexes are near 100. As a result the net loads for both MISO and PJM have soared. The biggest change happens to occur on the off peak hours. With the overnight lows moving into the mid 60's, we are starting to see around the clock increases in cooling load. This is forcing both control areas to add more resources to the grid to meet the demand. Figure 1 | Chicago Hi/Low Temperatures for May-July Thanks to this spring's drop in natural gas pries we have already seen the generation stack push as much coal output out of the dispatch. If you look at Figure 2 below, MISO and PJM gas generation is already ... » read more | |