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| Wednesday Jun 26, 2024 | |
| This spring the trend for SP15 batteries was low prices and high arbitrage opportunities. The low midday prices for SP15 began with work on the intertie, stranding the abundant solar energy in SoCal, and continued even after the maintenance wrapped up. By March, SP15 buy prices were well below $0/MWh at -$30/MWh and then dropped further still to average at -$36/MWh in April. Even NP15 batteries got to join in on the fun as NP15 buy prices for batteries in April dropped to single digits and even below $0/MWh last month. June, however, has seen a reversal of that trend, especially in the last few days as both NP15 and SP15 prices have risen while congestion is greatly reduced. Figure 1 | Price Responsiveness – Battery Operations and RTM Price The figure above is featured in our CAISO ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Jun 25, 2024 | |
| Mother nature has gifted a healthy amount of wind volumes to the SPP grid this month as depicted in the figure below. The current year is marked in red, 2023 in orange and 2022 in green. This graph shows net load and its components for the past three years on 12 months by 24 hours basis. We can see that the wind generation has been significantly higher this month compared to the previous two years. Load has been in the range seen in the past two years and as a result, net load shifted lower this June 2024. Figure 1 SPP 12x24 Profile – Last 3 years Mother nature did not just offer the wind in SPP, the heat has also been present in the region just like in the rest of the country. Warmer temperatures started to kick in since the middle of this month. The table below shows the ... » read more | |
| Monday Jun 24, 2024 | |
| It seems that everywhere you turn in the electricity industry as of late you encounter talk of load growth. AI might still be something of a buzzword, but data centers are very real with substantial MW demand. Likewise, warmer temperatures mean more demand for cooling, and all long-term forecasts show most of the US facing above average temps this summer. Load growth is real, the EIA estimates 1% annual growth in US demand through 2050, but don’t believe the hype. If you want to see how load growth is playing out in the short term at a local scale you need to dive into the data. As much as data centers and electrification are real phenomena, so are insulation and behind-the-meter solar. Where narratives get messy, numbers provide clarity. Figure 1 | ERCOT Load vs. Temperature, Jan. » read more | |
| Friday Jun 21, 2024 | |
| Earlier this year, I blogged about viewing the solar eclipse from my perch in upstate NY; and observed the minor miracle that it wasn’t cloudy on that day. Located downwind of the Great Lakes cloud empire, much of this area averages over 200 days of cloud cover per year: like the Pacific Northwest. This week, on the summer solstice, however, we’re getting a full-fledged “3-day” mini heat wave in New York, with full sun to partial haze so it got me thinking of New York’s progress with meeting its high aspirations and lofty goals for solar-market transformation. If you were to only look at NYISO data, you wouldn’t see much progress at all. In fact, you’d see nothing because NYISO in their generation ... » read more | |
| Thursday Jun 20, 2024 | |
| Heading into last weekend, hydro output in the Pacific Northwest had been on a downward slide since the first week of June, with daily average output topping out at 15.3 GW (a high for the entire 2024 water year to-date, spurred on by warming temperatures and accelerating snow melt), then pulling back to fall below 12 GW on the 15th last Saturday. With snow levels dwindling at the low and middle elevations and the forecast full of hot and dry weather moving forward there is limited water in the system to utilize this summer when it comes to power generation. The factors that will make a difference are tied to dam operations around refill high in the system—especially up in British Columbia—along with the share of project outflows allocated to spill as opposed to ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Jun 19, 2024 | |
| On the first of every month, we post a CAISO Monthly Battery Dashboard, which provides a broader outlook for a lot of the data displayed in the CAISO Daily Battery Dashboard, making it easier to recognize trends over time. If you’ve looked at our most recent monthly dashboard on the EnergyGPS website, you might have noticed a few changes! As we work to continue providing better information and insights for our battery offerings, we have made some new and exciting updates this June to the dashboard. Read on for more information. The first thing you’ll notice is the comparison of value streams table has been bumped to the top of the report. This table and corresponding figures put potential day-ahead and real-time arbitrage values by region, along with energy balanced regulation ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Jun 18, 2024 | |
| The ERCOT grid is incorporating more heat into its daily conversation, but the renewable landscape has a voice given the wind profile is impressive coming out of the weekend. The impact the latter has on the former is detailed in the net load hourly profile where the most valuable block of hours in the evening ramp when the sun is setting. Over the course of the month, we have seen this block of hours average just over 2.0 GWa higher compared to that of June 2023. Figure 1 | ERCOT Renewable 12x24 Profiles This might sound like a lot, but in the grand scheme of things, the uptick could not happen at a better time. The reason behind the need for megawatts during this block stems from the power demand still being strong while the sun starts to set, and the solar panel ... » read more | |
| Monday Jun 17, 2024 | |
| Watching the National Basketball Association (NBA) playoffs, the home team that can finish off the series tends to get the crowd chanting ‘MVP, MVP, MVP’ when their star player has the ball. For example, the Dallas Mavericks have Luka Doncic while the Boston Celtics have Jason Tatum as their superstars leading them to the championship series where the Boston fans will have a chance for the cheer to resonate on Monday, June 17th as the Celtic’s are up 3-1 in the series. Figure 1 | National Basketball’s MVP’s We continue to cover the natural gas landscape in the EnergyGPS North American Natural Gas and Power Product Offering as well as deliver a monthly market recap as part the Platinum eCommerce package we offer as part of our blog series. For ... » read more | |
| Friday Jun 14, 2024 | |
| In the West, there are only three nuclear power plants currently operating – Columbia Generating Station (Richland, Washington, ~1200 MWs), Palo Verde Generating Station (Tonopah, Arizona, ~4000 MWs), and Diablo Canyon (Avila Beach, California, ~2300 MWs). All began operation in the mid 80s. The EIA publishes information on hourly generation by fuel type per balancing authority and region. Because there’s only one nuclear plant in the Desert Southwest, the aggregated data for nuclear is entirely Palo Verde (it’s a real regional heavyweight, responsible for about 25% of all generation in the region). The figure below shows annual generation for the Southwest region (WALC, AZPS, GRIF, HGMA, DEAA, SRP, TEPC, PNM and EPE as defined by the EIA) taken ... » read more | |
| Thursday Jun 13, 2024 | |
| The investment in solar capacity continues to show up in ERCOT, with more generation hitting the grid each of the first five months so far in 2024. Tracking a running maximum of solar generation in ERCOT (figure taken from our ERCOT Monthly Renewable Dashboard) shows steady growth over the past three years but the slope has increased since the end of last year. Since May the solar profile has shifted up again, adding 1.3 GW to the average midday peak output. Figure 1 | ERCOT Solar and Wind Running Monthly Maximum Generation (MW) Renewable growth is a little harder to track on a day-to-day basis in ERCOT compared to some other markets as one can only see generation that actually hits the grid, whereas potential generation is not immediately visible. Information on ... » read more | |