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| Wednesday Aug 16, 2023 | |
| If you’re subscribed to receive our CAISO Daily Battery Dashboard via the EnergyGPS Platinum Plus Package, the table below probably looks familiar. It displays arbitrage values for four-hour CAISO batteries operating in the real-time market of SP15 and NP15. It uses our TB4 model which assumes a battery can discharge in the four highest priced hours of the day and charge during the four lowest priced hours of the day with some efficiency loss. In practice, this is not possible as it would require a perfectly omniscient battery operator. So you might be wondering, how much of this arbitrage are batteries able to capture? To help answer that question, we’ve made some updates to our daily dashboard. Figure 1 | TBNth Arbitrage Values The figure below was featured in ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Aug 15, 2023 | |
| The day of reckoning will be in play across CAISO and ERCOT later today as both regions are looking at extensive heat and little wind generation to assist in the overall balancing act, especially during the evening ramp period when the solar output shifts lower as the sun sets and the net load climbs. The market conditions within both markets have been discussed extensively over the past couple of weeks within the EnergyGPS North American Power and Natural Gas Enterprise Product Offering. Figure 1 | CAISO Peak Power Demand – Actual and Forecast The daily conversations within such a product detail the regional supply/demand picture associated to both power and natural gas. Take for example, at the end of July 2023, Southern California’s gas entity had pipe issues ... » read more | |
| Monday Aug 14, 2023 | |
| The summer is nearly half over as the midpoint of the third quarter is upon us. For those living in the South Central region, specifically Texas, the past six weeks have been one for ages as a heat dome weather pattern has been locked in across the region. The result is simple, daytime highs regularly tops the triple digit level with high humidity of the Gulf of Mexico that leads to some of the highest ERCOT power demand levels seen by the system operators. Figure 1 | ERCOT Net Load Daily Profile – Year on Year Comparison Figure 1 displays the rolling 7-Day net load average for the past three years in the top figure while the lower left takes on the profile for the past seven days and an equivalent forecasted period. The lower right graph displays the hourly ... » read more | |
| Friday Aug 11, 2023 | |
| Summertime: Baseball and Electricity Summer 2023 has been a real scorcher in places and brought with it record-setting heat, particularly in the South and West, along with record-setting performance from many renewables throughout the US. But summer also makes me think of our national pastime: baseball. I prefer the small-ball version of baseball: singles, stolen bases, bunts, and hit-and-run type play. It’s more exciting than waiting for a base-clearing homerun. The electric grid is increasingly playing its version of “small ball” in the form of distributed, smaller-scale, and intermittent resources such as renewables, supplemented with batteries and gas peaker facilities. Meanwhile, our long-ball analogue, large baseload power ... » read more | |
| Thursday Aug 10, 2023 | |
| This summer has seen some key changes to real-time prices in ISOs across the country that have impacted the revenue renewables have received compared to previous years. In our latest Newsletter Renewable Monthly report, “July 2023 – Comparing Price Profiles”, we dig into these renewable capture ratios by examining the changes in monthly price profiles, as well as the drivers behind the changes. Below is an excerpt from the report, touching on both CAISO and ERCOT’s price changes. To start off with in CAISO, renewables performed roughly on par with June production, with the July solar profile peaking at 14.9 GW again while average wind generation shifted down 400 MW to 3 GW for the month. The events resulted in a July price profile at SP15 that ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Aug 9, 2023 | |
| Just last month, we discussed the warmest June on record for global temperatures, but July has turned up the heat even more. This July was the hottest on record with temperatures across the globe shattering previously set highs. In the US, the Desert Southwest and Texas sat under a heat dome for much of the month. Several cities broke records for most consecutive days over 100 degrees (or over 110 degrees!), including Phoenix and El Paso. The heat strained the electrical grids as demand stretched with the need for air conditioning to create a livable environment. In our July monthly, titled ‘Turning Up the Heat in July’, we examined the impacts of a sweltering July on the affected grids across the country, as well as neighboring regions that offered support. Read on for a ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Aug 8, 2023 | |
| ERCOT continues its summer heat wave with temperatures across the state topping the century mark for the day-time highs. Wind generation numbers are impressive all things considered, that is until it does not show up in the real-time market and the ERCOT system operators are left scrambling for megawatts knowing that the sun is eventually going to set, and the power demand is still present. Figure 1 | ERCOT Wind/Solar 12x24 Monthly Generation Profiles The graph above illustrates the renewable landscape across ERCOT for the first seven days of August 2023 and the months/years that proceed it. The shapes on display are associated to the hourly average output by month for wind and solar units across the Lone Star state with each color representing the past three years. The ... » read more | |
| Monday Aug 7, 2023 | |
| The month of August is considered the heart of the summer months as the third quarter of the calendar year transitions from the front half of the period to the back half. Warmer temperatures are in the cards across the lower half of the mainland US while the upper half tries to fit in cooler overnight lows to keep the demand at bay. Down in the Desert Southwest, there is talk about monsoon-like weather where rain moves in, and the daytime highs shift down below the current levels north of 110 degrees. Figure 1 | Phoenix Temperature Forecast/Warning The monsoon conversation continues to take on the theme of mon-Soon to be MORE HEAT in the Desert Southwest as the upcoming forecast is calling for next weekend to move back into the 110-112 degree level as the daytime highs while ... » read more | |
| Friday Aug 4, 2023 | |
| The California Carbon Allowance (CCA) price has been on the rise since the beginning of 2023, where it was averaging just under $30 per allowance. Starting in March 2023, the price level moved up a couple of dollars and held around the $31.50 level all of Q2-2023. By the end of June, the California Carbon daily settle price moved up to $33.26 but it was the month of July that started to tell a story as the month ended with the price shifting up to $36.70, which was a new record. Records are meant to be broken, in this case it did not take too long as by August 1st, the California carbon prices reached an all-time high of $37.51. Since that time, the daily indice has pulled back some which begs the question of where do we go from here? The chart in Figure 1 illustrates the ... » read more | |
| Thursday Aug 3, 2023 | |
| With Mid-C having taking back the position as the highest-priced hub in the West this week, the focus is on the Pacific Northwest where a temperatures are on the rise after a relatively mild end to the month of July and where the hydro system is becoming increasingly stretched. Unlike further South in California, where hydro has continued its strong output essentially uninterrupted since mid-March, the Pacific Northwest hydro system entered the summer with low flows and limited storage. This has been most pronounced high up in the system in British Columbia, where the two largest reservoirs sit behind Mica and Arrow dams. Mica has been slow to refill over the past three months and in late June, the decision was made to begin releasing large amounts of water from Arrow ... » read more | |