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| Friday Mar 15, 2024 | |
| For the last several years we’ve seen signs of tightening throughout Western electricity markets. CAISO experienced rolling blackouts in 2020. The January 2024 winter storm triggered multiple energy emergency alerts across the Pacific Northwest. Cash markets have experienced price spikes with increasing frequency. These and other reliability concerns have helped pave the way for a regional resource adequacy program called the Western Resource Adequacy Program (WRAP). The WRAP will create a methodology for determining resource adequacy need as well as for accrediting supply. This methodology will be used to determine whether WRAP members have met their RA compliance obligations through a forward showing process. While the WRAP will not create a market for RA via a market ... » read more | |
| Thursday Mar 14, 2024 | |
| The presence of oversupply in Southern California during the middle of the day is nothing new. The robust solar capacity present in the region means that curtailments are a fact of business in SP15, and this past week is no exception. For the past six days, solar curtailments have averaged over 1 GW, climbing to over 3 GW on the 8th and 9th. In CAISO, the oversupply issue has grown more and more severe each month since December, reaching unprecedented levels so far in March. Total solar curtailments averaged 1.4 GW (and 81%) higher in January of this year than in January 2023, 609 MW higher in February, and 3.7 GW (20%) higher through the first 12 days of March. Figure 1 | CAISO Daily Average Curtailment MWh by Month We’ve written about the challenges ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Mar 13, 2024 | |
| The spring maintenance for nuclear plants is trailing behind previous years. As of Tuesday, March 12th, the total amount of US nuclear outages stands at just 10 GW. That’s down 2.1 GW from the week before and more than 4 GW behind outages on the same day in both 2023 and 2022. The figure below is featured in our daily NRC Nuclear Plant Summary report. The dotted black line shows our forecast for outages which includes upcoming refueling cycles, as well as estimated outage end dates for plants currently partially or fully offline. While outages are down slightly this week as the first round of spring refueling winds down, we expect the second half of March to bring outages much closer to previous years’ levels. Figure 1 | Total Nuclear Plant Outages (MW) As of yesterday, there ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Mar 12, 2024 | |
| The weekend was filled with modest weather across most of California where the skies in Southern California carried some blueness that led directly to solar output tapping the 17 GW level during its potential peak output. The idea around seeing this much utility-scaled volume make its way to the grid is magical but unrealistic given the transmission constraints that continue to plague the region, starting with the S to N limitation tied to Path 15, which connects Southern California to the northern part of the state. The other piece of the puzzle is the S to N restriction tied to the NOB transmission line, which connects the LA Basin to that of the Pacific Northwest. The final piece is the interconnect between the Desert Southwest and Southern California where a base ... » read more | |
| Monday Mar 11, 2024 | |
| The weather across the country is displaying signs of spring while carrying with it the final days of the winter season. Take the Pacific Northwest for example, Friday displayed sunny skies with highs topping 60 degrees only to take on a weekend storm that brought with it plenty of wind and rain at the lower elevations and snowpack as you moved up the mountains. California saw a similar pattern with Thursday and Friday quite pleasant in the Bay Area and further south while the weekend saw the sky blanketed in clouds while inland has the Sierra Mountains another round of snow. Figure 1 | California Snowpack Tables Since the start of the month, the California snowpack storage level as jumped considerably with the current readings as of Sunday displaying 16,079 kaf or 16.08 ... » read more | |
| Friday Mar 8, 2024 | |
| Western electricity markets are at a crossroads. Pressing reliability needs have motivated the development of the Western Resource Adequacy Program. The need to integrate large volumes of new renewables has provided the motivation to expand centralized markets (my general term which covers RTOs/ISO/EIMs) throughout the Western Interconnect. The Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM), brought to you by CAISO, currently has 22 balancing authorities participating. The Western Energy Imbalance Service Market (WEIS), brought to you by SPP, has 12 participants. The CAISO’s WEIM covers a larger geographic area and has more load than the WEIS, which is mostly in Colorado and parts of Wyoming. While the WEIM and WEIS represent great first steps towards the development of centralized markets ... » read more | |
| Thursday Mar 7, 2024 | |
| A lot of the discussion tied to renewables in ERCOT this winter was focused around solar and battery growth. The increase in solar capacity in ERCOT has been particularly evident with the string of mild temperatures that have shown up for much of the winter and has resulted in the monthly solar profiles for December, January and February coming close to doubling year-on-year for the midday peak. We’ve written about this phenomenon in past Newsletter Renewable Monthly reports, available as part of our Platinum Plus newsletter eCommerce package. The changes have presented steeper slope for the afternoon/evening net load profile in ERCOT, putting more of a burden on ERCOT’s thermal fleet as well, a topic that we explored in a past Newsletter Special Report ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Mar 6, 2024 | |
| As part of the EnergyGPS eCommerce Platinum/Platinum Plus package, we publish a monthly recap report where the focus is on some of the key drivers covered throughout the month in our North America Power and Natural Gas Enterprise Product Offering. This past month saw a reprieve from the cold stint that ravaged the entire Pacific Northwest and the middle third of the Lower 48 in January 2024. The balmy spring-like temperatures across the Midwest, Ohio Valley and Northeast did not bode well for the natural gas producers and storage holders. If there was one entity outside of Mother Nature to blame it was Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog, as it did NOT see its shadow on February 2nd. The binary outcome signaled to the believers that there will be an early spring, but nobody ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Mar 5, 2024 | |
| The California market always has something to discuss as it has a Renewable Portfolio Standard, Carbon Market and a natural gas landscape that has been on both sides of the equation when it comes to not having enough molecules to the current stage of over-supplied heading into the middle of March. Figure 1 | California Natural Gas Storage If you recall, prior to Winter 2023, SoCal Gas was walking out of a winter season (2022) where the incremetnal gas that was injected into Aliso Canyon was not utilized due to a robust renewable landscape with both behind the meter and utility-scaled solar leading the way. Throw in the simple fact that there were no nuclear outages in play for Spring 2023 and the natural gas system was flush with molecules. Fast forward to now and a similar ... » read more | |
| Monday Mar 4, 2024 | |
| The I-5 corridor in the Pacific Northwest saw massive amounts of precipitation over the weekend, all the while the temperatures were hovering in the 35-38 degree range with wind gusts creating wet snowflakes. The wetness turned into fluffy flakes as you moved to the 500-foot elevation level and the higher site-points were showing a snowpack thickness that made sense given the conditions mentioned. Figure 1 | I-5 Corridor Weather and its Impact on Pacific Northwest Snowpack What this means for the Pacific Northwest hydro outlook is two-fold, first the moment it gets warm we will see the Westside region deliver a melt that pushes over .7 GWa into the balancing act that would otherwise not be there. With the next few days expected to remain cold and have precipitation, Mother ... » read more | |