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| Tuesday Jul 25, 2023 | |
| The Midwest ISO is heating up with warmer temperatures in the forecast for the balance of the week. Prior to this event, the weather has been modest throughout the month of July which has led to modest power demand numbers in many of the demand regions. The issue is on the supply side as the thermal stack has been hit hard with coal retirements over the years while the wind generation fluctuates where higher output definitely aids in the overall marginal cost of energy while lower wind profiles start to stretch the internal supply stack. Figure 1 | MISO Wind Breakdown – Monthly The image panes above detail the wind growth over the years within the MISO region as the bottom displays the cumulative potential peak volume while the bars are tied to the monthly generation ... » read more | |
| Monday Jul 24, 2023 | |
| The month of July has nearly come and gone as we only have one week left, to which much of the Lower 48 will be blanketed with some sort of summer heat. The South Central is looking at extremely warm temperatures while the Midwest is transitioning from a moderate spurt to that of above normal while the East is going to rid itself of a rainy start to Q3. The West region has had a week or so where temperatures in the Desert Southwest have reached as high as 119-121 degrees only to fall to the upper 90’s overnight. In fact, it was so hot in Las Vegas that some flights were delayed due to the planes not being able to take off. In one instance, the backlog of departing planes left passengers idling on the tarmac for hours where heat exhaustion came into play and ... » read more | |
| Friday Jul 21, 2023 | |
| Recently, an odd pattern has been showing up in ERCOT’s prices. Figure 1 | ERCOT DA and RT Prices, 7/14/23 – 7/20/23 One pattern is just that DA prices are spiking every day while RT prices sit on the ground, but that’s not what we’re talking about this time. The part that looks odd is the double-pointed peak that’s been appearing almost every day. Although this image only shows instances of that pattern occurring in the DA prices, it’s been showing up in RT too, on days such as July 10th or 12th. One of the spikes is reliably during HE20, which isn’t surprising. But what’s causing the spike a couple of hours earlier, anytime from HE15 to HE17? Why would prices spike, then go down, then spike again rather than just staying high? The answer ... » read more | |
| Thursday Jul 20, 2023 | |
| This summer has seen some significant upticks in renewable performance in areas where installed capacity is still low and makes up a small share of the supply stack. One such example is MISO, where despite a relatively cool start to the summer the ISO is setting new highs for solar output. With some major heat on the way and showing up in next week’s forecast (see the figure below), we could see new records set shortly in the region. Our latest Newsletter Article, “Settling on the Sun’s Rays” touches on MISO’s solar progression and how it compares to other regions where solar is more established. Figure 1 | Heat on the Way in the Midwest The solar growth across the country started out West as California’s Renewable Portfolio ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Jul 19, 2023 | |
| If you already receive our Daily ERCOT Battery Dashboard to your inbox, get ready for some exciting new updates! If you haven’t yet, today is the day to sign up. To provide you with the most relevant data, we’ve made a few upgrades to the dashboard including calculating a TB2 average and adding more ancillary service revenue to our Comparison of Value Streams section. Read on to learn more about the changes and get a sneak peak of the new figures featured in our daily dashboard. The first table in the Daily ERCOT Battery Dashboard uses our TB4 model to calculate potential battery revenue. The TB1st values represent the revenue made if a battery in ERCOT charges during the lowest priced hour of the day and discharges during the highest hour of the day. The TB2nd represents ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Jul 18, 2023 | |
| It is with a heavy heart that I am penning today’s blog as our 14-year-old cat is now an angel looking down upon us. Flipper was his name as our four-year old daughter took one look at his gray silky hair and said he looked like the dolphin in her favorite movie. Figure 1 | Flipper the Cat – Consultant over the years Flipper was a cat that took on many roles within the family along with causing certain stresses that created memories around laughter, worry and at times consultation within the energy space. The laughter came when he would politely deliver a prize catch where feathers were spewed across the hardwood floor or take a moment to torture a live bird or mouse. The laughter was mostly internal to him as we would try to save the friend he invited ... » read more | |
| Monday Jul 17, 2023 | |
| In this pre-trading NYMEX session the prompt month is up a penny to $2.55. Heat indices across the Midwest, Mid Atlantic and West are posting above forecast for this weekend which should lead to warmer revisions in the coming days. The next two weeks should be the hottest stretch of weather for the summer but once August arrives climatology starts to drop the seasonal CDD accumulations. The month of July is half way over and the pricing is an indication that the production is still winning out as the Gulf cash pricing has been modest at best given the lack of LNG sendouts and massive wind generation while heat is on display. Since last week the total LNG sendouts have corrected higher but still are underperforming versus expectations. Back in April total LNG deliveries ... » read more | |
| Friday Jul 14, 2023 | |
| Washington State has been in the news over the last few weeks for surpassing California as the State with the highest gasoline price[1]. As of July 5th, the cost of gasoline in Washington was $4.98 per gallon, $0.13 higher than California at $4.85 per gallon. As of July 10th, the price difference narrowed a little to $0.09 per gallon. Despite the Washington Cap-and-Invest program being in effect since January 2023, the gasoline pricing signals have only recently crossed over California. Figure 1 | Gas Prices in Washington and California. The Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology) doesn’t believe that carbon prices from the Cap-and-Invest program are to blame. They state that gasoline prices are mostly driven by supply and demand balances and public ... » read more | |
| Thursday Jul 13, 2023 | |
| The theme of our Daily Newsletter entries the past several days has been the shift from the remarkably cool temperatures in parts of the country last month to the heat that has just arrived or is about to arrive moving forward. Recent posts have focused on the West, where PG&E and SoCal Gas have benefited from the mild weather and reduced load present in the power grid to make up for lost ground in the race to refill their storage caverns in time for the coming summer’s (and ultimately next winter’s) high load days, and is now facing the arrival of the first major heat event of the summer in CAISO. Focusing on the power piece, CAISO is not the only market in the country that is seeing a major shift from an extended spring in June to the real summer heat and its ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Jul 12, 2023 | |
| This June was the hottest on record for global temperatures, so it comes as no surprise that last month had some record-breaking heat in North America. In Texas, the heat rose over the century mark for several days while Canada continued to deal with massive forest fires that spread smoke into the US. However, not every region experienced a heat wave at the end of Q2. A few regions, like California and PJM, were consistently plagued by a blue blob representing below-normal temperatures on the forecasts. In our most recent monthly, titled ‘June Runs Hot and Cold’, we checked in on the regions that ran hot and the ones that faced the cold over the month of June and explored how the weather impacted energy markets across North America. Figure 1 | Alberta Fires and California ... » read more | |