Menu
Featured Articles
| Friday Aug 2, 2024 | |
| The transition from July to August has come with some heat across the Midwest and Northeast while ERCOT/SPP has seen a drop in their respective wind output. The former is driving up the power demand numbers while the latter is expanding the net load volume by taking away the most volatile renewable resource from the supply stack. Figure 1 | ERCOT Net Load Profile – Hourly The impact to the natural gas grid is simple, the power burn numbers are moving up with the past three days sitting over 50 BCF/d with a high of 53.8 BCF on Thursday. These are the highest numbers of the summer, but it has not been enough to get the natural gas spot prices and/or near-term forward months to move up. In fact, with the EIA Weekly Storage number presenting an injection during the ... » read more | |
| Thursday Aug 1, 2024 | |
| The entire West is gearing up for another round of hot temperatures and high demand in the coming days, coming after over a week of moderate weather, especially in the Pacific Northwest from the Cascades over to the coast, keeping us working from Energy GPS offices in Portland, Oregon feeling nice and cool. The Northwest has dealt with plenty of heat and strong demand for much of the past month, starting after the 4th of July holiday and holding until about one week ago. The forecast shows real heat moving into not only into the PNW but also the rest of the West, starting tomorrow to usher in the new month of August. Figure 1 | Hourly Load by Market, Last 7 Days and 7-Day Forecast The impact to demand is clear to see in the ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Jul 31, 2024 | |
| The month of July broke plenty of heat records across the globe, including the hottest day ever recorded just last week. For California, the state started the month out with a heat wave over Independence Day and will end the month with wildfires raging and more heat on the horizon. In our latest article, titled ‘Summer Bliss – CAISO’ , we take a look back at the first heat waves of the month for both CAISO and the Pacific Northwest and compare to what we can expect for the heat coming in the next couple weeks. Read on for a sneak peek. Figure 1 | CAISO Actual Temperatures and Differences from Normal in July 2024 From a price perspective, the initial heat wave to the 2024 Summer was quite calm as the grid operations were leaning on a healthy natural gas fleet, plenty of ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Jul 30, 2024 | |
| In our daily morning reports for SPP (Southwest Power Pool), we have highlighted how SPP has benefited from robust wind generation at crucial times when demand is high. The figure below displays the daily supply and demand conditions in SPP over an 18-day period. The top pane illustrates power demand, the second pane shows wind generation, the third pane presents net load, and the bottom two panes depict day-ahead prices. Forecasted numbers are represented by lines, while shaded areas indicate real-time values. Figure 1 | SPP Daily Profile, July 7th- 15th During the period from July 12th to 16th, when load averaged between 40-45 GW, wind generation was quite strong, averaging in the mid to upper teens. Wind output decreased as load declined. Additionally, starting on July 25th, demand ... » read more | |
| 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 | |