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| 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 | |
| Friday May 19, 2023 | |
| ERCOT and SPP are considered the front runners when it comes to their respective wind capacity installation over the past decade or so. If you look at the current forecast for wind generation, you will do a double take most likely as the numbers are displaying single digit averages across both regions. Figure 1 | ERCOT Net Load Profile The graph above is part of the EnergyGPS ERCOT Morning Report/Dashboard where we illustrate the net load that is derived by taking the hourly power demand (red line) and subtracting out the renewable components such as solar (gold shade) and wind (darker blue shade). The lighter turquoise shaded region displays the net load with the first half tied to the actuals and the second half indicated what is to come over the next week. It is clear that the ... » read more | |
| Thursday May 18, 2023 | |
| The growth of renewables, such as wind and solar, is meant to solve the problems created by burning fossil fuels. However, implementing these technologies comes with its own set of challenges to power grids across the country. ERCOT and PJM are two ISOs that have seen growth in both solar and wind over the last few years. While the power is cleaner than a coal or natural gas plant, it’s intermittent and only available when the sun is shining, or the wind is blowing. This creates a consistency problem where some hours have plentiful amounts of renewable energy while others must still rely on thermal plants. ERCOT saw average solar generation in the middle of the day up to 10 GW so far this May, while average wind is up to 15 GW in its peak hour. With more renewable capacity comes ... » read more | |
| Wednesday May 17, 2023 | |
| The West is enjoying high temperatures this week with highs up to 100 degrees F in Phoenix on Monday, May 15th. It’s just the beginning of a heat wave expected to last over the next two weeks. The figure below shows differences from normal cooling degree days this time of year based on a composite Desert Southwest temperature. This week has temperatures 4 to 7 degrees warmer than normal, and it coincides with heat waves in both the Pacific Northwest and California. The last time this happened this spring, all three regions depended on CAISO thermal to meet the increased demand. This round of heat should play out a little differently as the heat has cranked up enough in the last few weeks to melt the snow in the mountains and send it down through the dams across the West. We explore ... » read more | |
| Monday May 15, 2023 | |
| Warm weather abounds across the entire, which equates to strong power demand and the acceleration of the higher elevation snowpack in both the Pacific Northwest and California. The former has limited quantity per se in the Upper Columbia basin (see recent EnergyGPS Pacific Northwest Hydro Report/Discussion) while the latter is plentiful as multiple storms moved though the Golden State since the beginning of January 2023. The amount of snow that remains in the mountains is record setting and is creating issues tied to where to put the remaining snow water equivalent (SWE) quantity as storage facilities are reaching their max and flooding is already in play along the riverbanks. Figure 1 | CAISO Hydro Profile – Hourly The graph above displays the hourly CAISO hydro ... » read more | |