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| Wednesday May 29, 2024 | |
| There is only one coal plant left in Alberta. With ambitious clean energy goals, the province began 2024 with only two coal plants, both part of Capital Power’s Genesee Generating Station. As of this month, Genesee 1 as a coal plant is retired and is currently being refitted to run as a natural gas plant. Genesee 2 is set to make that same transition later this year. This will leave Alberta’s grid completely reliant on natural gas for their thermal stack, along with growing renewables and support on the interties. Figure 1 | Genesee Generating Station (Capital Power) Previously providing round-the-clock baseload energy, coal generation in Alberta has gradually dropped over the past few months. The figure below shows the average hourly profile of load and different supply ... » read more | |
| Tuesday May 28, 2024 | |
| The weather pattern across the country continues to bring with it both uncertainty around the type of event and what the electricity hourly price settles have in store. For example, is the weather event plain old heat or does it come with tornado like winds, or do we just get the latter in parts of the country that typically would not have to worry about such. Both scenarios detailed played out over the Memorial Day weekend as the southern portion of the Lower 48 delivered tornados along with sustained heat that continues to show its hand as the long holiday weekend comes to an end. As you move up into the Ohio Valley, the pathway for such storms slices through Kentucky and made their way through the Northeast leaving damaged neighborhoods behind. Figure 1 | ... » read more | |
| Friday May 24, 2024 | |
| ERCOT is in the middle of an extended stretch of hotter-than-normal weather. The worst of the heat is still to come, over this upcoming weekend, but today is hot as well, with highs in the 90s or 100s depending on the region. Figure 1 | ERCOT Temperature Forecast from WSI Trader, 5/23/24 – 5/28/24 The heat has brought with it higher load. Of course, in ERCOT, there is always the possibility for high load to be offset with high wind and solar generation. High levels of renewable output have kept the net load more or less in check over the past couple of weeks of heat (despite the fact that the grid has had to contend with more generator outages than usual for this time of year). But the outlook for today is for wind to die down during the highest-load hours of the afternoon and ... » read more | |
| Thursday May 23, 2024 | |
| Much of the conversation around MISO since the winter has been tied to renewables and the rapid growth displayed by solar in particular. Solar capacity (at least as it translated to solar MW on the MISO grid) has grown steadily for several years leading up to 2024. But since January of this year the growth has been explosive. The figure below plots average hourly MISO solar generation by month, going back to the start of 2020 with the blue bars in the top pane. The red line represents a running maximum instead of average solar output, as a proxy for actual observable, usable capacity in place. Overall, in 2023 this solar output rose by just over 700 MW, but over the first four-and-a-half months of 2024 the number has almost doubled, climbing 2.5 GW to reach ... » read more | |
| Wednesday May 22, 2024 | |
| With just a passing glance, it might seem as though the troubles for Glen Canyon dam and Lake Powell behind it are in the rearview mirror or at least trending in the right direction. A couple strong water years have boosted elevation levels at the lake which hit its lowest point ever a little over a year ago. Now Lake Powell’s elevation sits over 3,560 feet, recently surpassing lake levels from this time three years ago. After a decades-long drought, the last two years have given the lake a much-needed boost and given states in the Colorado River Basin some breathing room when it comes to agreeing on a plan to reduce water usage. However, problems at Powell persist when it comes to long-term planning for Glen Canyon dam and the millions of people that rely on both water from the ... » read more | |
| Tuesday May 21, 2024 | |
| ERCOT is back at it again with heat moving into the Lone Star State, which means the conversation around the net load profile takes center stage, especially during the evening ramp portion of the heavy load block as declining solar and volatile wind both are contributing factors to balancing act. Figure 1 | ERCOT Net Load Breakdown – Hourly The graph in the figure above is an illustration of ERCOT’s net load profile where the last day that warranted a higher price signal was back on the 17th when the stars aligned to create a steep ramp in a short period. This is a common theme that EnergyGPS continues to discuss in detail within its South Central Power Sub-Package to the North American Power and Natural Gas product offering. The conversation is how the ERCOT grid ... » read more | |
| Monday May 20, 2024 | |
| Records are meant to be broken is the old saying in sport, but the energy sector has a logbook of its own where the power landscape focuses on renewable energy, the natural gas landscape leans on some basis hubs sitting in negative territory quite often as of late while the weather is working on record temperatures hitting parts of the Lower 48 this spring. Figure 1 | Records are meant to be broken Starting in Texas, the wicked storm that took the Houston metro area by surprise late last week brought with it hurricane/tornado type winds that rocked the downtown skyscrapers awhile knocking down trees and there were images of massive transmission standards toppled where power is still out for many. The timing of the storm could not have been worse as Mother Nature is delivering heat ... » read more | |
| Friday May 17, 2024 | |
| From 2012 to 2022, coal’s portion of total electric generation in the US declined from 37% to 20%. Factors including economics, primarily competition from and the expanded use of natural gas, and coal’s numerous environmental problems have been slowly chipping away at its output. In the US, new coal plants are not being built and old ones are retiring with regularity. Despite all the issues associated with coal, there is a positive attribute that coal does provide: fuel supply resilience. If built as a mine-mouth plant, it sits at the very source of its fuel or it can mound up a great big pile near the plant as shown in Figure 1. So, while natural gas pipelines may experience operational problems such as freezing, and wind and solar are ... » read more | |
| Thursday May 16, 2024 | |
| What a difference a week makes! One week ago our newsletter was centered around the relatively cool start to May that had EGPS personnel wearing jackets into the office in the morning and tied to a stagnant hydro system in the Pacific Northwest. Seven days later and the conversation around the water cooler had flipped on its head after a weekend of hot weather, and after our office air conditioner conked out the temperature in the office had climbed up to 82 degrees and there was not a jacket to be seen. The cool temperatures up to last weekend fed into an already dry water year and has kept overall generation from the hydro system low through the first two weeks of the month. Each water come spring time, early May is when we typically see water hit the rivers in ... » read more | |
| Wednesday May 15, 2024 | |
| Back in the days of broadcast television, individuals or households occasionally had to make difficult decisions about what to watch if there was more than one desirable program showing at the same time. Do you catch the latest episode of your old favorite, or check out that new show you’ve been hearing about on the other channel? Here at EnergyGPS, we direct you to the current important shows to watch in energy markets across the country, so you don’t miss out on the big moments. In our most recent battery report, we discussed how focus for those interested in CAISO batteries has changed over the years. Read on for a sneak peek at ‘Midday Charging – The Game to Watch’. For people casually interested in CAISO batteries, the best topics to focus on have ... » read more | |