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| Monday Jun 5, 2023 | |
| The West energy markets always seem to have some sort of twist and turn that creates discussion amongst the market participants. For example, in years past the natural gas space was all about the lack of storage tied to Aliso Canyon and an aging El Paso pipeline while the Pacific Northwest dealt with its own pipeline issue around the rupture in British Columbia back in October 2018. This past winter was one for ages as the season started off with colder temperatures across the region, which led to early residential/commercial heating demand along with power burns. As a result, the California gas entities were under distress early and often as the power burns were not going to be the toggle to allow them to balance as the generation was needed. Figure 1 | PGAE Natural Gas ... » read more | |
| Friday Jun 2, 2023 | |
| Over the past two months, EnergyGPS has promoted it’s joint venture with Gary Ackerman, where the end game is provided market participants in the energy sector with a version of the ‘Burrito’ that incorporates all the usual sections Gary is notoriously known for along with a little spicy salsa of our own where we include an editorial on a topic of choice that should resonate with the audience. Figure 1 | The Burrito – EnergyGPS For those of you who do not know about the ‘Burrito’, it is 5-8 page piece of content that covers topics that make their way into the energy space but many times are outside the realm of the daily trading activity. The topics are just as important as they cover some of the root causes to how a market is being shaped by on the ... » read more | |
| Thursday Jun 1, 2023 | |
| The month of May has seen relatively low demand across the country, as well as wind generation that has lagged behind last spring in many power markets which has combined to expose solar resources—in the old guard of CAISO as well as more recent rival for the crown of solar king in ERCOT, all the way down to other markets where solar capacity is a much smaller portion of the overall supply stack, albeit a rapidly expanding one in PJM and MISO. With summer right around the corner, the solar piece is even more relevant and a frequent focus of our recent written content. Within each piece of content around the solar penetration within a specific region lies two components, the first is tied to the midday curtailment risk while the second is associated to the mentioned ... » read more | |
| Wednesday May 31, 2023 | |
| With Memorial Day weekend in the rearview, it’s the unofficial start of summer and the beginning of the end for spring outage season. Over the last few months, more than 35 nuclear power plants have gone offline for scheduled maintenance. Some were off for a few weeks, while others stopped contributing to the grid for more than 2 months. With temperatures and demand ramping up, the baseload nuclear power is returning to the grid with the change of seasons. Before it wraps up completely, let’s look back on the spring 2023 outage season. Figure 1 | US Nuclear Outages in Megawatts with Forecast (2019 – 2023) The shape of the spring nuclear outage season was a little different this year. The figure above shows total outages for nuclear plants across the country in ... » read more | |
| Tuesday May 30, 2023 | |
| The month of May has delivered another round of weather chaos across the country as Western Canada (specifically Alberta) is dealing with forest fires that are ravaging areas that were once thought of as untouchable to the blazes themselves. The Pacific Northwest and now California was presented with warmer weather that is extreme enough to move mountains of snowpack into the river system. The South Central region has been dealing with pressure system that warrants lower wind generation, thus the region has stronger power burns. The Midwest, Ohio Valley and Northeast seemed to be caught in the spring-like spiral as cooler overnight lows kept things in check during the day. Figure 1 | Pacific Northwest Hydro Generation – Daily Average The graph above displays the Pacific ... » read more | |
| Friday May 26, 2023 | |
| ERCOT continues to be a focal point in the energy space as it has been a couple of years since Storm-Uri took the grid operations to the bring. Prior to the event, the grid was the leader when it came to wind capacity and the solar profile was just starting to percolate to where the volume was enough to be a part of the daily conversation when it comes to the supply/demand balance. In the month/years after Storm-Uri, the ERCOT system operators have been adjusting their grid as the renewable landscape continues to evolve with solar now being a bigger profile within the supply stack. As we have seen in California and the CAISO market, once this happens the balancing act takes on different challenges throughout the year, including the springtime when the power demand is not ... » read more | |
| Thursday May 25, 2023 | |
| Battery operators trying to capture the arbitrage in the SP15 real-time and day-ahead markets face many choices. One of these includes deciding whether to double-cycle and chase the price peaks in the morning ramp. The cycle of midday charging and evening dispatch is consistently profitable and reliable, but more often in the winter, the morning can provide lucrative arbitrage opportunities as well. Back in February, we pointed out the missed opportunities as batteries sat idle and missed some of the highest prices in the day in ‘Missed Morning Price Peaks for SP15 Batteries’. Since then, the CAISO fleet performance has been more of a mixed bag as some days continue to miss high morning prices while other days see discharge peaks just as high as in the evening. The figure ... » read more | |
| Wednesday May 24, 2023 | |
| During the month of May, the power markets in the West have undergone a material change. After a lean winter in terms of supply including very dry conditions in the Pacific Northwest from a hydro perspective and thermal units both in the PNW as well as down in CAISO being called upon to operate intensely, recent weeks seem like a night-and-day change. Mid-C and the CAISO hubs have been in the teens more often than not with midday prices dropping below zero consistently in California. Since the final week of April, the Northwest has seen hydro flows and generation increase sharply, to a much higher degree than expected. The expectation for the month of May has swung quickly, which has implications for the coming summer and puts this water year in a unique position ... » read more | |
| Tuesday May 23, 2023 | |
| The prompt month felt downward pressure coming out of the weekend as the weather forecast was calling for modest temperatures leading into the long Memorial Day weekend. Such prompted the cash markets across the East and South Central to pull back on its settles all the while the power levels were basically stuck at a level that would help widen the implied heat rates. Figure 1 | PJM Implied Heat Rates The chart above displays the PJM West and East implied heat rates for the past two weeks with the darker blue line tied to the former while the gold line represents the latter. With spot gas prices tilted to the $1.40 level over the weekend and on display to start the week, the uptick in the West continues to trigger natural gas-fired generators to win out in the battle of the ... » read more | |
| Monday May 22, 2023 | |
| Memorial Day is a time of year where transition starts to occur with the first being that the school year is almost complete, and the young adults look forward to their summer activities outside the classroom. We also see this time as putting the first two months of Q2 behind us and looking ahead to the final month of the spring (June) while keeping one eye on what the weather vendors think Mother Nature has in store for Q3. Figure 1 | Memorial Day Transition The biggest transition during the Memorial Day weekend sits in the Pacific Northwest as it is a time that sees the water year usually hit its peak flows by the end of the month and all that is left is to analyze what snowpack is up in the mountains and what it means for meeting the dam storage refill targets by the start of ... » read more | |