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Thursday Oct 15, 2015   
Over the past three days, the weather has been nice during the shorter daylight hours in the Pacific Northwest as Portland's highs are in the low/mid 70's.  It is the nighttime temperatures that are starting to show their hand to increased demand across the early morning hours as well as the ramps.  This leads to the overall hourly load to shift into the double hump (winter) profile. Figure 1 | BPA Actual Load - Hourly This is leading to the morning ramp hours to be more of a premium, hence why the Midc heavy load is slightly strong over the past two days ... » read more
Wednesday Oct 14, 2015   
I could not help but notice that the majority of fans in the stands were in summer like mode when it came to the dress code during the Mets and Dodgers National League playoff games the last two nights.  I had to grab my phone and make sure it was the middle of October no July.  Such weather has had an impact on the overall demand across the country to a point that California has been seeing highs in the upper 90's for the past four days.  All told, if the trend continues throughout the next two weeks, we will continue to see it in the EIA ... » read more
Tuesday Oct 13, 2015   
It sure seems like the heat is never going to end in California as the CAISO's load revision for today shifted the overall peak demand up another 1,719 MW to put it at 39,809 MW. Figure 1 | CAISO Peak Load Forecast - Daily Such a move up topped the forecast for last Friday due to PGAE's tac region increasing on top of both tac regions in Southern California.  It should be pointed out that the actual peak demand last Friday came in much higher than the forecast with the SDGE tac region leading the charge. On the supply side, the interties continue to be at/near ... » read more
Monday Oct 12, 2015   
Everyone in the Pacific Northwest has been spoiled since the spring time, when the high ridge over the Pacific Ocean anchored down.  This led to a record summer as Portland saw over 28 days of plus 90 degree highs, when the normal number of days sits at 11.  Why do I tell you all this? Because the month of October has given us beautiful weather with highs in the mid 70's, blue skies and no precipitation.  This all changed on Saturday afternoon when the skies turned dark and the rain began and came down so hard the street drains were clogged with leaves ... » read more
Friday Oct 9, 2015   
As the heat in Southern California continues to rise, so does the scheduled load and virtual demand in the day-ahead market.  Such an increase could be seen for tomorrow as the grid was shorter by 1,800 MWa (3,000 MW at the peak) on the load schedules and 900 MWa shorter via the virtual behavior.  This left the grid over 2,700 MWa shorter across the heavy load and over 4,000 MW shorter during the peak hour. Figure 1 | CAISO Day-Ahead Load Schedules To try and soften the blow to the overall implied heat rates, the CAISO made a call to 'suspend' the Round ... » read more
Thursday Oct 8, 2015   
California continues to see heat throughout the state, especially in south where Burbank is expected to see highs in the triple digits on Friday and upper 90's over the weekend. Figure 1 | Burbank Forecast and Actual Temperatures This has let to the CAISO Day-Ahead load schedules to shift higher throughout the week, especially during the evening ramp where the peak has gone from 30.3 GW to 34 GW as of today. Figure 2 | CAISO Day-Ahead Load Schedules Add to it the shift in virtuals to net demand, especially in the evening ramp hours and the grid is quite a bit ... » read more
Wednesday Oct 7, 2015   
As we roll into the 2nd weekend of October, the high ridge that has blessed the West with above normal temperatures does not want to go away as California is looking at highs in the upper 90's once again on Friday and into the weekend.  This will translate into increased demand across the state. Figure 1 | CAISO Peak Demand Forecast As you can see in Figure 1, the peak demand hits on Friday (this week) does not shift down the load over the weekend and looks to stick around into early next week.  Now someone might say by looking at the picture above, the ... » read more
Tuesday Oct 6, 2015   
Over the past few days, the weather has been mild across the country, which in turn has decreased the demand for natural gas from a power burn perspective and forced more gas into storage.  Let's first look at how power burns are shaping up now that we are into the first full week of October.  Monday's total US burns were around 23.6 BCF, which is over 4 BCF lower than a week ago.   Figure 1 | US Power Burns - Daily If you look at the year on year (YOY) delta to the far right column in Figure 1, you can see the delta is less than 1 BCF.  This is ... » read more
Monday Oct 5, 2015   
Over the weekend, the California grid saw some changes to their supply stack that ultimately pushed up the overall implied heat rate in SP15 by a 1 1/4 points (going from a 10.75 on Friday to over a 12.0 for today).   Figure 1 | CAISO Day Ahead LMP Auction Results - SP15 Hourly As you can see in Figure 1, the entire curve shifted up despite load being 2,800 MWa lower today vs. Friday. Figure 2 | CAISO Day Ahead Load Schedules - Hourly Since it is not load causing the uptick in the implied heat rate, it has be coming from the supply side.  Diving into ... » read more
Friday Oct 2, 2015   
Now that we are in the month of October, the well anticipated derate of the DC transmission line from the Pacific Northwest down to Southern California is upon us.  As of tomorrow, October 3rd HE 5, the DC intertie will be derated down to 0 MW.  It is expected to stay derated until the work is completed on December 21st, 2015.  This information has been known in the marketplace for some time as BPA as had conference calls/sent out PDF reports that describe the work going on and how the changes will ultimately add new capacity to the line as well as make ... » read more
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