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Monday Jul 29, 2024   
Around 3 p.m. last Wednesday a car went up in flames north of Chico California. Quickly, a fire (the Park fire) spread up the dry gullies and forests of the Sierra Nevada foothills. By last Sunday the blaze had grown to cover 360,000 acres and was only 12% contained. A massive cloud of smoke sits over the hills, hundreds of buildings have been destroyed, thousands of people have evacuated. One impact of this fire missed in most reporting is its damage to electrical infrastructure. Figure 1 | Footage of the Park Fire from PG&E Electrical Infrastructure  The above photo is the last image from the Richardson Spring Rd camera, sourced from Alertcalifornia.org. It shows PG&E infrastructure, now at the center of the blaze, engulfed in flames. This image is on or near a 500 KV ... » read more
Friday Jul 26, 2024   
Recently, after a 4-minute YouTube DIY tutorial, I stopped by a nearby lumber yard to pick up supplies including a Doug Fir 2x6 to replace some rotting windowsills.  I didn’t need a full 2x6 since I was ripping it to a desired width and angle.  As most people know who work with pre-cut dimensional lumber, the true measurements are less than the nominal dimension.  So, as shown in Figure 1 below, a 2x6 measures 1.5 inches by 5.5 inches.  We use the nominal terms because, well, they are easier to say.  And apparently, the same rule holds true when energy goals are announced: we like numbers that are clear, easy to remember, and definitively inaccurate. Figure 1| A Stack of 1.5 x 5.5 Lumber Disguised as Nominal 2x6’s The New York Climate Leadership ... » read more
Thursday Jul 25, 2024   
Those living within PJM’s boundaries are enjoying a bit of a break from the summer that has delivered the heat almost constantly, pushing total June cooling degree-days to 312 for the month—more than twice the number from June of last year—and July CDDs on track to end the month well above average and nearly 10% higher year-on-year.  We’ve seen the impact of heat so far in PJM this summer.  System load reached a new high earlier this month of the 15th and then again on the 16th, topping out at 152.5 GW of demand.  The load growth is apparent especially in the area south of Washington DC in PJM’s Dominion Zone.  The figure below plots daily maximum load in Dominion Zone against the Richmond daily average temperature for all weekdays from ... » read more
Wednesday Jul 24, 2024   
The heat in the West this July has been breaking records left and right with most of California experiencing its hottest summer ever and cities in the DSW hitting extreme temperatures.  Two weeks ago, July 7-13, total CDDs for the western US hit their highest point of the year and reached levels comparable with the hottest days of last summer (August 15th and 16th). Despite the heat, energy prices did not reach extreme levels. In our most recent battery report, titled ‘Heat, but no Sizzle’, we dove deeper into the day-ahead and real-time prices and the opportunities for CAISO’s battery fleet during the heat. Read on for a sneak preview. Figure 1 – Actual Temperatures for California and Degrees from Normal (Jul 1 – 14) As part of our long-term battery ... » read more
Tuesday Jul 23, 2024   
 The western part of Canada has been battling the raging wildfires (especially in Alberta) that started early this year due to a mild winter season which caused dry conditions. The wildfires became extreme towards the end of June and the number of wildfires categorized as out-of-control has been growing gradually since then. In our recent natural gas report for West Canada titled “Alberta’s Wildfires Turmoil”, we talked about how the natural gas world in the region has been affected by these wildfires. Figure 1 | Alberta Wildfire Status Dashboard, July 16, 24 – Government of Alberta & NGTL Map   From figure 1 above, we have two maps: the one on the left displays the status of wildfires in Alberta, and the one on the right shows NGTL’s map of ... » read more
Monday Jul 22, 2024   
The West has seen some mind-blowing temperatures of late with 5-year averages looking cool in comparison and 30-year averages looking downright silly. With that in mind, the grid has fared well with July prices remaining under the last three years. But with unusual weather comes unusual happenings in the power market, and CAISO price settles are š¯… going in a most peculiar wayš¯…  In our recent coverage of California we’ve been paying careful attention to one such oddity: the relationship between pricing in SP15 and NP15. Figure 1 | 12 x 24 Day Ahead Power Settles by region   The above figure shows a comparison of pricing between SP15 and NP15 across years and summer months. The first element of note in this figure is that NP15 averaged above SP15 this July. While solar ... » read more
Friday Jul 19, 2024   
Aluminum Man 2024 Written by Tim Belden The 15th Annual Portland Aluminum Man Competition (“AMC”) took place on a beautiful, sunny day at the end of June in Portland, Oregon. Long time readers are familiar with the AMC, in fact, a small number of readers claim the annual update is the only reason they subscribe to this blog. The event is called “Aluminum Man” (think aluminum foil) because it is the opposite of an intense event such as Iron Man. The AMC consists of twelve men competing in a series of ten individual and team events. Teams are changed after each event with the goal to maximize the mixing of participants. In one event you’d be paired with one guy, and in the next event you will be paired with two different guys. At the end of the day we ... » read more
Thursday Jul 18, 2024   
The heat in the Pacific Northwest has been nothing short of sweltering so far this month as Mother Nature has delivered blistering temperatures to both the Northwest and Northeastern United States in recent days.  AESO has been flirting with prices near the cap earlier this week and is facing rising net load numbers once again today as the load is still present and the forecast has wind on the decline.  Down on the US side of the border the grid has seen hydro power output shift intraday to flex and lengthen the afternoon/evening ramp but fail to shift the overall flat average generation until the past 2-3 days.  Starting around the 4th of July holiday and leading up through last weekend the focus at the top of the Columbia main stem has been on holding back a portion water ... » read more
Wednesday Jul 17, 2024   
For batteries in CAISO, the fleet started out mostly participating in ancillary services. Once the fleet’s capacity surpassed the required amount needed to provide the relevant AS services, the transition began. More batteries started participating in the day-ahead and real-time energy markets, more dispatch started making its way on the grid, and AS prices fell in relation to opportunities for day-ahead and real-time energy arbitrage. We’ve been monitoring this same transition for the ERCOT battery fleet. It started last March in ‘The Case of the Missing Dispatch’. In that special report, we predicted the fleet would saturate the ancillary service markets, find more revenue opportunities in capturing day-ahead and real-time energy arbitrage, and dispatch more to ... » read more
Tuesday Jul 16, 2024   
In the past, we have talked about how the wind generation has been relatively strong in June 2024 in SPP. Mother nature continues to be generous with plenty of wind volumes during as observed the first half of this month compared to what we have seen in the past two years. From the figure below, we have a 12 by 24 graph showing the net load components (load and wind generation), and thermal generation from 2022 through July 15th. It should be noted that the month of July 2024 includes only the first 15 days of the month. Figure 1 | SPP 12x24 Profile, 2022-2024 The generation from the blades has been especially strong this month during the midday block of hours while hovering somewhat at the same level seen in the past two years across the early morning and evening hours. On average, the ... » read more
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