MenuFeatured Articles
| Wednesday Sep 10, 2025 | |
| A Level 3 Energy Emergency alert was called on Monday night in Alberta. AESO has three levels of energy emergency alerts, or EEAs, with level 3 defined by AESO as when “firm load interruption is imminent or in progress”. On Monday night, pool prices shot to $999.99/MWh in HE 18 and stayed there until HE 20. The EEA 3 was called at 18:54 and stayed in place for a little over an hour. There were several factors with this event, including above-normal heat, missed forecasts, and limited transmission. The province is in the middle of a long stretch of above-normal temperatures. Combined with structural load growth, the hot weather has brought high levels of demand this summer. Last night’s peak demand came in over 11 GW and a couple hundred megawatts over the forecasted ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Sep 9, 2025 | |
| The Midwest has been under a prolonged stretch of colder-than-normal weather since late August, with average temperatures dropping well below seasonal norms. By early September, daytime highs were averaging in the 60s, more than 15 degrees below normal, and the cold pattern is expected to continue this week. Forecasts suggest the northern parts of MISO will stay cool with lows dipping into the 40s, while southern areas will also experience brief cooler conditions. Figure 1 | Midwest Average Temperatures and Differences from Normal (Aug. – Sept. 2025) This drop in temperatures has directly reduced electricity demand across the MISO grid. Peak demand, which often tops 90 GW in late summer, came in significantly lower, with peaks in the 70s GW range. At the same time, wind generation ... » read more | |
| Monday Sep 8, 2025 | |
| SPP has experienced both worlds from warmer to cooler-than-normal conditions this summer. Weather patterns have been milder than average since late spring, particularly in May and June, when Cooling Degree Days (CDDs) registered well below historical norms. July saw more typical summer heat, but August brought alternating stretches of above and below-normal temperatures, with cumulative CDDs falling short of both 2024 levels and the long-term average. These fluctuations underscore how weather continues to be a major driver of volatility in demand, net load, and prices across the region. Figure 1 | South SPP Monthly Cumulative CDDs in May through August (2017 – 2025) On the demand side, July’s stronger heat elevated loads above recent years, while August’s milder ... » read more | |
| Friday Sep 5, 2025 | |
| I (Tim Belden) recently participated in NewsData’s “Western Energy Summit” held in Boise, Idaho at the end of August. It was one of the best conferences I’ve been to in a while. It sounds like they plan to make it an annual thing – put it on your radar for next year. The general theme related to how will the WECC meet the combined challenges of the future – keep the lights on in an era of strong load growth, meet the blue state de-carbonization goals which require resource additions at an unprecedented level, coordinate the natural gas and power sectors during the coldest days of the winter, all while managing the costs for utility customers. Figure 1 | Western Energy Summit - NewsData We heard from a dizzying array of regional, national, and ... » read more | |
| Thursday Sep 4, 2025 | |
| Over the final portion of August and early September, the Northeast has struggled to extricate itself from the unusually cool weather pattern that has been in place over much of the Midwest and eastern US. Over the next three days some warmth is expected to move through the region to sit along the East Coast, but more cool weather is already making its way into the Northeast from the west and should shove the tentative warmth aside quickly by week’s end. This early prelude to the coming autumn is prompting changes of all sorts for the power grid as we move closer towards outage season. In NYISO, one of the changes that has showed up this week has been a shift in daily transmission patterns. Our newest addition to the Energy GPS Enterprise product offerings ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Sep 3, 2025 | |
| Labor Day weekend is officially behind us, marking the unofficial end to summer. Students are back in the classroom and Halloween decorations are already filling up store shelves. The next few weeks will be a transition period with weather gradually cooling down and leaves gradually turning color. For US energy grids, it’ll be a transition into shoulder months and the start of outage season. Nuclear outages remain small for now, totaling just under 1.2 GW yesterday. The table below is featured in our NRC Nuclear Change Dashboard. Just nine plants are experiencing partial outages. However, more than 20 plants are expected to come offline for refueling in the coming months. A few plants, including Catawba 2 in South Carolina and North Anna 1 in Virginia, have already started slowing ... » read more | |
| Friday Aug 29, 2025 | |
| Everyone is talking about the cold weather pattern swooping down from Canada and smothering the Upper Midwest, through the Ohio Valley and tapping the Northeast. Looking at the jet stream pattern and where the low and high pressure systems hit, the upcoming 3-7 day forecast has cooler weather moving down into the South Central region as after tomorrow, cities like Dallas, TX are looking at highs in the mid-80's over the long holiday weekend. Figure 1 | Texas Average Temperatures – Actual and Forecast This is atypically cool for the end of the month of August, and it is translating into lower demand (and, as we discussed in our most recent South Central Market Flash, lower power burns). In Texas, it is also showing up in the form of lower solar generation, thanks to the cloud ... » read more | |
| Thursday Aug 28, 2025 | |
| The late spring and early summer was characterized by a cycle of warm weather starting in the Midwest and moving eastward over the course of several days, traveling through PJM and the rest of the Northeast until reaching the East coast, only to recede and start the cycle again later. In fact, it has been the Midwest and Northeast that has been the focus for warmth and demand this summer. But this pattern slowed during August and now with September just a few days away the future looks markedly different. Most of the East appears to be leaving the summer behind, with the last block of hot weather now more than ten days in the past, and the forecast showing nothing but mild conditions moving forward to the end of the month and through the first third of September. Demand ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Aug 27, 2025 | |
| In our last Wednesday blog, we discussed the relative mildness of summer 2025 as compared to summer 2024 in Alberta. Only pockets of heat had broken through and caused periods of price volatility. This week, however, is proving summer is not over yet as heat is blanketing the province. The figure below features a temperature forecast from Atmospheric G2 with red indicating above-normal temperatures. The current heat wave began over the weekend and is expected to last through the first week of September. Highs in Calgary are expected to reach the mid-80s. Figure 1 | Atmospheric G2’s AESO and Calgary Temperature Forecast The heat is putting pressure on the demand forecast; peak demand reached 11.8 GW last night and is expected to do so again on Wednesday and Thursday nights. At the ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Aug 26, 2025 | |
| The natural gas market is driven by three core dynamics: supply, demand, and pipeline transport capacity. Supply reflects the volume of gas produced and available for delivery, while demand depends on factors such as power generation needs, industrial activity, residential consumption, and weather-driven heating or cooling requirements. Pipeline transport capacity serves as the critical link between production and consumption regions, dictating how efficiently gas can move to where it is needed most. When production exceeds demand but pipeline bottlenecks limit delivery, localized oversupply can suppress cash prices. Conversely, strong demand in constrained markets can push prices higher. Together, these elements interact daily to influence regional price volatility and shape the balance ... » read more | |