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| Tuesday May 20, 2025 | |
| During this month of May, the South Central region experienced a series of above-normal temperature days, especially from May 14 to 16, which put pressure on the grid. In our latest special report titled “On the 4th Day”, we discussed the market trends seen in the past week in greater detail. During this period, all eyes were on the net load profiles, focusing on the net load plus outages metric, which give a clearer view of where the marginal megawatt lies in the natural gas supply stack. A useful tool in this analysis is the ERCOT Real-Time Dashboard, which tracks the thermal plus outage volume and offers a detailed breakdown of the grid’s conditions during different periods of the day. These conditions were key to understanding when the grid was stressed, especially ... » read more | |
| Monday May 19, 2025 | |
| California is known for its snow-capped mountains, striped with snow fed streams filled with fat trout. It is also known for its hot, dry summers. The high peaks make California very well suited for hydro generation. However, the lack of precipitation in the most energy-hungry stretch of the year makes for a tricky problem. Let us check in on how this puzzle is playing out, as the summer season fast approaches. Figure 1 | California Snow Water Equivalent Figure 1 shows California’s snow water equivalent, which measures how much water is stored as snow across the state. This is a key measure to understand the strength or weakness of hydro in the spring and subsequent summer seasons. In red, we see the current year, gold and red show the previous two, and yellow and black show ... » read more | |
| Friday May 16, 2025 | |
| This past Wednesday, NERC released their annual Summer Reliability Assessment (SRA). In this report, they look at each Regional Entity in North America (most of which are further broken down into multiple assessment areas) and evaluate each region's ability to meet its expected peak demand during the months of June – September. Figure 1 | NERC Regional Entities (Source: NERC) The full document is well worth reading, but below are a few key findings: Assuming normal conditions with respect to factors such as generator forced outages, all regions are expected to be able to meet their peak demand this summer. However, several regions have "elevated risk", meaning that it's statistically plausible that a combination of factors—say, unexpected forced outages on top of ... » read more | |
| Thursday May 15, 2025 | |
| The Pacific Northwest is feeling a little cooler now, with some chill in the air overnight as temperatures drop down into the forties, but the warmer weather that was present last week made its presence known, not only in the form of thermostat readings but also in the river system. PNW hydro saw a boost in generation from 12.7 GW early last week to a high of 14.5 GW on the 9th, and continued strength throughout the first three days of the week. Figure 1 | Daily Average Lower Snake Hydro Generation (MW) While flows were on the rise throughout the system, the Snake River was most notable in its changes, as the volume surged from 87 kcfs one week ago on the 8th at Lower Granite dam to a high of over 120 kcfs on Monday. This rapid increase also represents what is expected ... » read more | |
| Wednesday May 14, 2025 | |
| The road for LNG exports has been a bit rocky over the first couple of weeks in May. After reaching the highest level of exports back in April with over 16 BCF exported each day, there has been a steep fall this month with exports only just starting to return to previous levels. The figure below is displayed in Energy GPS’s Daily LNG Dashboard and shows a rolling average of total US LNG exports. Values are shown as negatives so the lower line for 2025 (blue) demonstrates increased volumes of LNG leaving the country. While the beginning of this gas year tracked with levels from last gas year, levels dropped sharply at the end of January. By February, LNG exports started to pull away from previous years’ levels and reached new highs with the start of operations at the brand-new ... » read more | |
| Tuesday May 13, 2025 | |
| A recent heatwave across California and the Desert Southwest pushed electricity demand to new spring highs in CAISO, topping 32 GW and surpassing day-ahead forecasts. In our latest article, we explore the impact of high demand in the current market conditions, particularly the role played by the battery fleet on the grid. The surge in temperatures, especially in the LA Basin, caused a sharp rise in power consumption, most notably in the SCE balancing region. This demand strength was present through the midday hours, significantly reducing renewable energy curtailments, which are typically seen during sunny hours. With positive pricing sustained through midday, questions arise about how this affected the battery storage fleet’s daily charging and discharging patterns. Figure 1 | ... » read more | |
| Monday May 12, 2025 | |
| Recent weather has begun to put pressure on power markets, with warm days pushing up cooling demand. And the near-term forecast calls for more heat. These Spring heat waves do not present the same risks as summer and will never break demand records. Instead, we can think of them as Mother Nature testing the grid. When these tests occur, net load is one key statistic to watch. Calculated by subtracting renewable generation from total load, this tells us roughly how deep into the thermal stack the grid will need to go to satisfy demand, which corelates closely with price. Figure 1 | ERCOT Load, Net Load, Renewable Generation & Heat Rate Our first figure features a net load chart available in the ERCOT Daily Dashboard. Blue and yellow show solar and wind generation respectively, red ... » read more | |
| Friday May 9, 2025 | |
| I’ve known Andrew Kasius for a few years now, but it was news to me that he could swim. His blog last week reminded me of my early days in the Energy Industry. Every August in Sandpoint, where I (Steve Edburg) live, we have the Long Bridge Swim. It’s a 1.76 mile swim alongside the Long Bridge on Lake Pend Oreille. My first job in the Energy Industry was at EPIS, the makers of the Production Cost Model (PCM) Aurora. EPIS had a couple of diehard swimmers who trained and did the Long Bridge swim every year. Heck, even at the annual company retreats, employees could earn an extra PTO day by completing a 500-yard swim! I joined in on the Long Bridge fun once and it was, well… long! Much like the Long Bridge swim, my work at ... » read more | |
| Thursday May 8, 2025 | |
| With the robust growth in solar capacity in markets with traditionally low market penetration, we are starting to see more and more volatility introduced to the daily balancing equation on the supply side from renewables in ISOs such as MISO and PJM. Those who work in ERCOT or CAISO will be very familiar with the swings that can occur from day to day in such markets, but it is relatively new elsewhere. This dynamic was front and center in PJM this past month, after a stretch of cool and overcast weather early in April gave way to sunnier, warmer conditions in the second half of the month. The changes to solar this spring in PJM and its impact on PJM as a whole was the topic of our latest Special Report, “PJM’s Solar (Spring)board”. Figure 1 | PJM Daily ... » read more | |
| Wednesday May 7, 2025 | |
| On Monday night, Alberta pool price shot to $825/MWh as wind dropped low in the late evening hours. High demand was not a factor, as peak demand on Monday night stayed under 10 GW. The province has been enjoying mild and warmer-than-normal temperatures so far this May. High thermal outages, however, did factor in. On Monday, more than 3.6 GW of gas plants were offline. In the middle of the day, solar demand reached 1.7 GW. Wind generation started out the morning providing 3 GW and then dropped to 1 GW by midday. By HE 20, wind generation dropped under 0.1 GW. Net load, calculated as demand minus solar and wind, peaked at 9.4 GW. With a good portion of the thermal stack offline, Alberta had no choice but to send a price signal that attracted as many megawatts as possible. Figure 1 | AESO ... » read more | |