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| Tuesday Nov 7, 2023 | |
| Leaves are falling and Mother Nature is delivering a precipitation pattern that lines up with some of the previous ‘atmospheric river systems’ that pushed through the region two-years ago and last year down in California. The pattern has mostly been along the I-5 corridor up to this point, but over the last couple of days the pattern jumped over into Central Washington and parts of Western Canada. This type of weather is helping the system operators manage the Chum Operations, which kicked in at the end of October and will carry over well into November. Figure 1 | Chum Operations and Precipitation Chum operations start with maintaining a tailwater level below Bonneville Dam during this key time of year when spawning season kicks off. The ‘spawning ... » read more | |
| Monday Nov 6, 2023 | |
| This week is going to be presenting a “V” shaped wind profile along with moderate temperatures across the SPP. The combination of the two will impact the light load block of hours more so than the heavy load. In fact, the impact of the wind and lack of load early in the day exposes the ramping hours as thermal units will need to place their start-up costs into their respective offers. Figure 1 | SPP Net Load Breakdown – Hourly This played out for Monday as the two hubs saw the light load clear in SPP-South slide down to $5.54 while SPP-North ventured into negative territory (clearing -$2.25). Over in the heavy load, the two hubs jumped up to the mid $30 level given the circumstances mentioned above. Figure 2 | SPP Day-Ahead/Real-Time Price Settles As we ... » read more | |
| Friday Nov 3, 2023 | |
| The Renewable Monthly Report (September Report), which are apart of the EnerygGPS Platinum Plus eCommerce Package, details how each ERCOT trading hub played out over the course of the last three months in comparison to the previous two years. The table in Figure 1 lays out the monthly statistics for each pertinent zone and the weighted average price for wind in the North and West regions and solar tied to the Houston trading hub. Scouring through the data, it is clear that this past August sticks out as the 2023 North hub heat rate value is octupled in comparison to the previous two years. Figure 1 | First Part of Figure 16 From Renewable Monthly Report, September 2023 It’s not possible to point to any one single factor as the driver of the summer scarcity pricing as ... » read more | |
| Thursday Nov 2, 2023 | |
| There have been some big changes this fall in CAISO, shaking things up where it comes to renewables within the ISO and their performance compared to the past several years. The focus is on CAISO solar where the resource saw its value drop dramatically during the month of September, within Southern California in particular. We first wrote about the changes to CAISO’s solar ratio at the beginning of last month in our Newsletter Monthly Renewable Report, “September 2023 – End of Summer Transitions”. We followed it up with a more in-depth analysis shortly afterwards in our Newsletter Special Report, “Capturing the Roller Coaster Ratio”. The Monthly Renewable Report is available as part of the EnergyGPS Newsletter Platinum Plus ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Nov 1, 2023 | |
| Last week Alberta experienced its first winter weather in Q4 2023. With temperatures more than 20 degrees colder than normal for late October, overnight temperatures dropped into the single digits. While Alberta is no stranger to chilly weather, this cold snap came earlier in the year than usual. The extreme below-normal temperatures lasted four days. In this blog, we’ll look at how the region fared with this late October big chill. Figure 1 | Alberta Actual HDDs and HDD Differences from Normal for October 2023 Heating demand rose as temperatures plummeted. Compared to the previous week, peak load was up 0.5 GW from 10 GW to 10.5 GW. The light load saw average demand jump half a gigawatt. During the middle of the week, wind was nowhere to be found. With megawatts on the ties in ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Oct 31, 2023 | |
| Chum operations are in play this week in the Pacific Northwest, which means that the region will need to push more water downstream as the system operators and fish agencies are controlling the water level downstream below the Bonneville dam. Figure 1 | Bonneville Dam – Pacific Northwest Columbia River This type of operation is typical for this time of year, where the augmented flows can vary depending on what Mother Nature has delivered throughout the back half of October and leading into November. We have detailed such trends over the years and how impactful the 2023 Water Year has been on the current operations in the EnergyGPS Pacific Northwest Hydro Package. Such a package includes in-depth discussion around the current unregulated portion of the system and that of ... » read more | |
| Monday Oct 30, 2023 | |
| The transition from October to November is going to deliver colder weather across the Midwest, Ohio Valley, and Northeast along with dropping a little dusting of lower temperatures into the Mid-Continent region. This was evident coming out of the weekend within SPP as the power demand profile took on a more pronounced double-hump profile where the morning ramp period shifted higher with increasing demand. Figure 1 | SPP Net Load Breakdown – Hourly The graph above details the SPP net load profile (turquoise shaded area), which is made up of the power demand (red line) and the wind generation (bright blue). The orange dotted line is tied to the SPP South day-ahead implied heat rate. The net load hourly numbers for today (30th) carry the highest value on the board ... » read more | |
| Friday Oct 27, 2023 | |
| The Washington State Cap-and-Invest program has provided plenty to analyze and opine on in its first year. We here at EnergyGPS started the year off with a carbon emission forecast covering the three major emitting sectors; namely, the Electricity, Transportation, and Residential/Commercial/Industrial (RCI) sectors. While our emission forecast changed slightly over the year, the allowance prices varied drastically. We recently summarized the auction prices in our Washington carbon report titled “Where Do We Go From Here”. In that report, we described how news from the policy makers has resulted in large shifts in prices going from $48.50 up to $72 in the secondary market and then back down to the low $50s. The large increase was due to an ... » read more | |
| Thursday Oct 26, 2023 | |
| A chill has descended upon Alberta. After an October with mostly above-normal temperatures, this week is expected to be as much as 20 degrees below normal. The matrix below shows heating degree day forecasts for the region with the day the forecast was created across the top and forecast dates going down. As we move from left to right, we can see the change in the forecast over the last several days as blue started percolating at the start of last week and now it is upon us. The next few days are expecting temperatures 20 degrees below normal with lows into the single digits. With the extra heating demand and a lackluster showing from renewables, Alberta pool price is now over $500/MWh. Figure 1 | Alberta Heating Degree Days Difference from Normal Matrix The two big factors to ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Oct 25, 2023 | |
| The most profitable way to operate a battery attempting to capture real-time arbitrage would be to charge during the lowest prices of the day and discharge during the highest. In our latest article, ‘Missed Charging Opportunities for CAISO Battery Fleet’, we explore how the fleet is actually operating. The figure below is featured in the article and plots the average generation of the CAISO battery fleet against average ranked SP15 prices. The ranking takes each 5-minute interval in the SP15 real-time market each day and assigns a number corresponding to how high or low the price is compared to the rest of the day. The lowest price is always ranked 1 while the highest is 288. The data shown includes 2023 through October 23rd and all of 2022. For the most part, it ... » read more | |