Featured Articles
| Monday Oct 15, 2018 | |
| In the National Football League (NFL), the game is still known by the team logo/nickname such as the San Francisco 49ers, Green Bay Packers, New York Jets and New England Patriots. In fact, when you head to the games all you hear on your way into the stadium are chants like Go Pack Go or J-E-T-S, Jets Jets Jets. There are a few mortal icons that when their name is stated you stop and go yes, he changed the game. For example, if I said the word Montana, the mind immediately goes to the championship years in the 80's when the 49ers were the best team in football. If you are an avid football fan, you might even dip back into the college ranks when Montana led his Fighting Irish to a comeback win in the Cotton Bowl again Houston. Turning to the Packers, one ... » read more | |
| Friday Oct 12, 2018 | |
| I’m a student of electricity markets – I have been for 25 years. The changes we’ve seen in the last five years have been tremendous. The era of coal is being gradually ushered out by low-cost renewables. The vertically integrated utility used to control everything – both the load and the supply. FERC policies opened up the transmission system to independent generators. State policies, in some areas, opened up the retail sector to competition. In today’s market we see a broad array of generation owners – renewable fleet ownership is much more distributed than the traditional thermal generation fleet was 10 years ago. There are many more buyers in the market now as well. Many markets have direct retail access. In addition to the direct access demand ... » read more | |
| Thursday Oct 11, 2018 | |
| The Algonquin Pipeline recently reduced capacity throughout maintenance season. While the majority of outages kept capacity above 1 Bcf/d, there was a short segment of work that needed a much greater reduction taking the Stony Point Compressor Station to just 736 mmcf/d. The major outage had been continually pushed back with work initially being scheduled for the spring. After being moved to fall due to cooler weather in the first quarter of the year, the outage was scheduled for September 25th to October 12th. However, further complications in New England drove operators to increase capacity along the pipeline much earlier than expected. The pipeline issued a notice on October 4th that capacity would be restored the following day. Looking at Figure 1, we can see that capacity began to ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Oct 10, 2018 | |
| A couple of years ago, the Alberta Power Pool (APP or AESO), was a forgotten market as the supply stack was full of coal operated assets and the natural gas component was somewhat steady as the Marcellus/Utica production was keeping the price at AECO at moderate levels. This all changed last year as the pipeline maintenance tied to TCPL impacted the gas distribution system to a point that entities could not put the molecules into storage. This wreaked havoc in the cash market as a glut of supply did not have a home, so the only option was to price the spot market accordingly so the gas would be shut-in from the production fields. Their was only one problem, the natural gas incremental supply was coming from associated gas plays as well as new wells in the northern part ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Oct 9, 2018 | |
| There is one last storm headed for the Gulf Coast before we typically end the hurricane season. The National Hurricane Center has the track moving into the Florida Panhandle. There are a number of risks from the storm effect. Production is the immediate concern with Transco, Sonat, Destin and Discovery in the vicinity of the storm. After that the damage risks extend to the coast with processing and refining facilities to the west of the track and the Southern Company service territory dead ahead. Figure 1 | NHC Hurricane Michael Storm Track In previous storm events we have seen up to .6 BCF of volume drop off the total. As of right now we estimate only .22 BCF has been shut in. If the track shifts to the west we will see additional volume come off the system. A move towards Mobile ... » read more | |
| Monday Oct 8, 2018 | |
| If you have ever been to Spain, especially Barcelona, a drink of choice in the summer months is called Sangria. It is a mixture of brandy, red wine, some lemon and orange juice, sugar and the the every popular Triple Sec liqueur all swirled together with fresh fruit in a pitcher waiting to be poured. Triple Sec is a strong, sweet and colorless orange flavored liqueur enjoyed by many when they are out and about enjoying a cocktail other than Sangria, such as a Margarita, Kamikaze, Spiked Long Island Iced Tea or a drink called a Side Car. Figure 1 | Triple Something - Sec, H and A If you are a World Wide Wrestling fan, you might have hear of the iconic Triple H as he was once the face of the franchise during several Westlemania events across the country. Turning to ... » read more | |
| Friday Oct 5, 2018 | |
| The U.S. power grid is undergoing a unprecedented transformation with the integration of renewable energy resources and the retirement of many base load fossil units, especially coal. By most accounts this transformation is far from over: renewables are continuing to grow and batteries and other new technologies are making their way onto the grid. With all this change in the power sector, one thing has not changed much at all: the way you connect a generator. Figure 1 | Get In Line...... Transmission-owning utilities and RTOs have been obligated to connect generators on nondiscriminatory basis since FERC issued Order 888 in 1996. But buying grid access is not like other utility services that have posted prices. An interconnection request begins a ... » read more | |
| Thursday Oct 4, 2018 | |
| During the shoulder months, the temperatures tend to shift into a comfortable range. With demand for air conditioning and electric baseboard heating remaining relatively low, demand throughout electrical grids subside. This is when generators decide to take time to perform routine maintenance. As facilities go offline, more costly units can be pulled into the market in order to meet even below average electric demand. We have seen this occurring throughout the ISONE with several maintenance outages currently in place. With so many outages across the system, the system has performed admirably. Although the locational marginal prices have increased, the market has managed to hold it together making the best use of its available resources. The first outage was not throughout the electric ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Oct 3, 2018 | |
| After a summer of hot weather, the fall season usually brings the leaves changing color and plenty of football for all the college/professional fans to watch any given weekend. What we tend to forget about is the shift in the Renewable component that is known as wind generation. During a football game, you can see the little flags on the field goal posts indication the direction and the speed of the wind while the actual kickers making a motion with their hands on how the wind direction impacted the missed field goal. A couple of weeks ago, that was the case when the Green Bay Packers kicker missed the game winning field goal with no time left on the clock. After the two teams tied, the kicker was talking about how the cross wind in the stadium played a roll in the ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Oct 2, 2018 | |
| The injection season is closing fast. There are only five weeks left before the natural gas industry switches over to withdrawals. Although most of the country adheres to the switching from injections to draws, the South Central typically injects volume through the month of November. This year that is almost a certainty as the Salt storage inventory has not seen a solid build since the middle of June and is now posting 173 BCF. That is 123 BCF less than last year and 23 BCF less than where they were at the beginning of the summer injection season. Figure 1 | EIA South Central Salt Storage Inventory for 2014 - 2018 Despite the jump in North American Production as well as the increase in pipeline flows to the Gulf, South Central demand has overwhelmed the balancing. » read more | |
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