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| Monday Dec 16, 2024 | |
| The past decade has seen a tight contest between SoCal and PGAE Citygate for the title of California’s highest priced natural gas hub. In the previous year, however, this once great contest looked more like Jake Paul v. Mike Tyson: structurally favoring one side and not very interesting to watch. But finally last week we had a comeback, with SoCal Citygate taking back the crown, at least for a few days, for the first time since February 2024. Figure 1 | SoCal Net Injections 7 Day Average (mmcf) When looking for a cause, the obvious cause is storage activity. California’s winter-to-date has been mild in both the north and south with both hubs having plenty of gas stored away and yet to taste the dire demands that winter can cause. The two have differed in their ability ... » read more | |
| Friday Dec 13, 2024 | |
| Locked in fierce competition for the title of curtailment king, ERCOT and CAISO are raising the bar every month. So, following up to our recent note on CAISO “Too Much of a Good Thing”, this week we bring attention to ERCOT where we observe an acceleration in renewable curtailment this quarter. The sun is still shining, and the wind is blowing, but peak demand is down throughout Texas as summer heat is now far in the rear-view mirror. The net result is there are plenty of sad and unwanted MWh's in ERCOT looking for a home. Figure 1 below, taken from our December 2024 ERCOT Monthly Curtailment Dashboard, shows that solar curtailment in November nearly quadrupled from 59.6 GWh in 2023 to 209.6 GWh in 2024 while wind curtailment doubled from 289 GWh in 2023 ... » read more | |
| Thursday Dec 12, 2024 | |
| The Midwest is currently in the midst (with the Northeast following close behind, starting today) of the second stretch of frigid winter weather since the start of December. We can see the impact of the cold on electricity demand within PJM in the figure below, which plots daily peak load over the past month-and-a-half for the PJM system as a whole, PJM West, and PJM East. System load dipped prior to the second half of this week, falling below 94 GW over the weekend and sitting around 100 GW on Monday and Tuesday. Today the number is expected to reach 117 GW and climb to 118 GW tomorrow. Some of this is due to the colder weather, with temperatures down in the teens overnight in the Ohio Valley and in the 20s across the eastern portion of PJM. Figure 1 | PJM ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Dec 11, 2024 | |
| Ever wondered just how much behind the meter solar there is in CAISO? With rooftop solar in California abundant and continuing to grow, it’s important to understand how much capacity is chewing through the midday demand. At EnergyGPS, we have a dashboard for that! The figure below is featured in our CAISO Behind the Meter dashboard. The yellow bars display monthly behind-the-meter solar capacity while the red bars display utility solar capacity. The two are combined in the blue bars to show just how much solar capacity is present in CAISO. The figure below only displays data through January 2024, but subscribers to our CAISO BTM dashboard received a figure updated through October 2024 in their inbox yesterday. If you’re interested in viewing the dashboard the next time ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Dec 10, 2024 | |
| The western region of Canada experienced its first cold spell of the winter season in the last days of November through early December, as the season made its presence felt. A significant cold snap brought much-below-normal temperatures to Western Canada. With La Niña conditions in place, this winter is expected to be cooler than average in the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada, setting the stage for a season of heightened cold and wintry weather across the region. Starting on November 20th, overnight low temperatures across most areas of Western Canada dropped into the single digits, with daytime highs reaching only the upper teens. In the final week of November, negative overnight low temperatures were observed for a couple of days. This past November, Alberta had largely ... » read more | |
| Monday Dec 9, 2024 | |
| Some stories are here one day and gone the next. An eclipse, a fire, a generation failure, our industry is full of exciting, one-time events. Other stories move more slowly and keep on giving. This is the case with CAISO’s intrastate transmissions. Late 2023 into early 2024 saw a big leap in CAISO’s solar and battery capacity. This has in turn upped the pressure on many of the grid’s weak points. In spring 2024, this development looked unprecedented and spectacular. But now with the year drawing to a close, transmission woes look not like a freak event but rather like a permanent fixture. Figure 1 | Marginal Cost of Congestion at SP15 and NP15 Our first picture shows CAISO’s reported marginal cost of congestion in SP15 and NP15. This highlights the driving ... » read more | |
| Friday Dec 6, 2024 | |
| For more than three years the Mid-Columbia has been the premium electricity market in the United States. What was once known as the low-cost, hydro-based wholesale market came roaring to life in 2021. The factors contributing to the bullish run at the Mid-Columbia were multi-fold – (1) load growth from data centers and industrial demand, (2) coal retirements, and (3) extremely limited resource additions. The supply-demand balance gradually tightened, and then suddenly, the region was short. We saw Mid-Columbia cash prices begin to move higher in May of 2021 and reaching a peak in January 2024 when daily ICE prices breached $1,000 per MWh during the MLK Weekend Winter Storm of 2024. Just as the bull market in the Northwest was getting legs, the state of Washington enacted a carbon ... » read more | |
| Thursday Dec 5, 2024 | |
| As frequent readers will be aware, the content we publish as part of our eCommerce product offerings, including regular articles, special reports, and monthly reports cast a wide net, touching upon the hot issues and news in markets across the country and focusing on everything in gas and power with a special focus on renewables. This week we have turned the spotlight onto CAISO with our latest Monthly Write-up, “Thanksgiving Turducken” as well as our most recent Special Report, “Time Flies when…” touching upon the growth in CAISO solar (both utility scaled and behind-the-meter) as well as battery storage and its impacts on the grid. The former The duck curve formed in California early in the push for 100% renewables in the coming decade as ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Dec 4, 2024 | |
| Just a few days ago, the calendar page flipped to the last month in 2024. This means there is new content available at EnergyGPS as the first of the month marks the publication of new monthly dashboards. If you’re subscribed to our Platinum Plus package, you have access to two new battery dashboards for ERCOT and CAISO. The monthly battery reports contain insight into long-term trends and comparisons of prices, arbitrage opportunities, and more for regions in California and Texas. The figure below offers a taste of what you’ll see with average monthly ancillary prices for ERCOT going back to 2023. Our Platinum Plus subscribers also received a new battery report offering even more detailed analysis of an ongoing trend for the ERCOT battery fleet. Read on for a sneak peek of ... » read more | |
| Monday Dec 2, 2024 | |
| Despite the holiday, energy and gas markets did not disappear over the weekend, although they did look a bit sluggish. Now, on Monday morning, we were curious just how reliable the holiday downturn in demand is. Put another way, with nothing but market data to go off of, could someone reliably guess the date of a moving holiday like Thanksgiving? Figure 1 | CAISO Load Forecast Actuals and Historicals Our first chart approaches the problem from the side of power markets. Pictured here is CAISO’s load and load forecasts. We can see here that the 23rd and 24th had a normal weekend drop in demand. Count forward from there and you have a suspicious Thursday drop in demand, which would put this year’s Thanksgiving on the 28th. The grey dotted line shows demand values from ... » read more | |