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| Thursday May 1, 2025 | |
| With April now squarely in the rear-view mirror, the shift is already underway for the PNW hydro system. The arrival of May now largely puts flood-risk management (FRM) behind us as the focus transitions from clearing up enough storage space behind the system’s dams now that April 30 targets have been reached to catching the new water as it melts and flows down into the river system. Earlier this week on Tuesday the Army Corps of Engineers posted updated FRM guidance that finalized the dates to begin refill operations at each storage project. There has been some movement back and forth over the past week particularly for Grand Coulee. At this time last week the plan was to draft the project down only as far as required to reach the April 30 elevation target ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Apr 30, 2025 | |
| One month into Q2 and MISO is already seeing some summer-like temperatures. Over the last several days, MISO South has had above-normal temperatures with highs close to 90 degrees in some cities. On Monday, MISO North joined in with aggregate highs close to 80 degrees along with thunderstorms and a severe weather alert. At the end of the day, real-time demand reached the highest point so far this quarter at 83.4 GW. In the summer, MISO can expect 100 GW+ demand days, but in spring, days like this can quickly tighten as many plants are offline for maintenance. Figure 1 | MISO Market Summary – Forecast and Actuals Ultimately, the grid was able to handle the extra spring demand without prices skyrocketing. Wind generation was quite strong, averaging over 20 GW while solar provided 10 ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Apr 29, 2025 | |
| As we approach the end of spring and transition into the summer season, the renewable energy landscape is set to undergo a shift as weather patterns change. Wind generation traditionally experiences a significant decline as summer approaches. This seasonal dip is visualized in figure 1 below across some major ISOs, including ERCOT, MISO, PJM, and SPP, where wind generation tends to drop off in May. The wind generation shows clear differences in how the years compare as we approach the summer season. The volatility in wind generation is especially evident during May and June. Figure 1 illustrates this fluctuation, showing years with relatively strong wind output, while others experience low volumes. This variability highlights the challenges in predicting wind energy availability during ... » read more | |
| Monday Apr 28, 2025 | |
| Sunny southern California is known for many things, one being traffic. Usually this refers to freeways and cars. This year, it also applies to natural gas pipelines. We have seen an impressive run of High OFO events, where excess volume is scheduled on the pipe, forcing the utility to issue penalties which are meant to reduce traffic and maintaining the systems operation integrity. This traffic jam is not so mundane as it points to the changing landscape of SoCal’s power and natural gas components such as continued solar growth, the addition of batteries and the third consecutive good water year in the Golden State. Figure 1 | SoCal High OFO Days prior to April 28th The table above gives us a comparison of High OFO risk by year. Each value represents the numbers of days in which ... » read more | |
| Friday Apr 25, 2025 | |
| The updated California Energy Demand (CED) 2024 - 2040 forecast was released as of late last month. The chart below shows the annual CED planning forecasts for the past two years, broken into a statewide and CAISO systemwide total. To summarize how aggressive things are getting beyond 2030, the Statewide 2023 Forecast is similar to the CAISO 2024 Forecast by the out years. Figure 1 | CED Annual Planning Forecast, Total Energy to Serve Load (MWa, Statewide and CAISO, 2023 and 2024) The figure below shows baseline net load growth by year (California ISO, not statewide total). Data centers have been hyped for some time now, but this is the first year that the CED forecasts have included data centers as an explicit source of load. By 2030, 2,200 MWs of data center load growth is ... » read more | |
| Thursday Apr 24, 2025 | |
| In yesterday’s Newsletter, we highlighted a new record set in California, as CAISO’s battery fleet reach a new all-time high for simultaneous dispatch, peaking at 9.7 GW of electricity supplied to the grid early this week on Monday night. With renewables front and center not only in CAISO but markets across the country these events are popping up multiple times every year. The past week we saw another such milepost reached over in PJM as the latter half of the month has seen a transition from the unusually cool temperatures present in early April to the warmer (and sunnier) conditions currently at play. PJM solar stepped up to a new all-time high of 11.7 GW last week on the 17th and came close to matching it again yesterday afternoon. So far in April ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Apr 23, 2025 | |
| The CAISO battery fleet has crossed a new high water mark for dispatch as the fleet peaked at 9.7 GW on Monday night. The previous record was more than a gigawatt lower and had stood since October 2024. The new record inches the fleet up closer to 10 GW mark. The figure below is featured in our CAISO Daily Battery dashboard and displays battery discharge (orange) and charge (blue) with SP15 and NP15 real-time prices overlaid. Midday prices dipped well below the $0/MWh mark in several of the days displayed. On Monday, both SP15 and NP15 real-time prices dropped below -$15/MWh at different points in the middle of the day, making for prime battery charging time. Then real-time prices shot up to $100/MWh in the evening. Quickly the battery fleet dispatch shot up as well. As the battery ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Apr 22, 2025 | |
| The recent GCPA Spring 2025 conference in Houston drew hundreds of industry professionals and spotlighted some of the most pressing issues in the ERCOT power market. Our recent article details the key highlights of this conference. The main objective was to discuss where the Texas power grid is headed. While the panels covered everything from regulation to future infrastructure, three hot topics dominated the conversations: the upcoming Real Time Co-optimization plus Batteries (RTC+B) rollout, the struggles facing the Texas Energy Fund (TEF), and booming load growth across the market. Figure 1 | ERCOT West Power Demand vs. El Paso Tempatures Bins The RTC+B initiative, launching in December 2025, marks one of the biggest market design shifts since ERCOT’s nodal market debut. » read more | |
| Monday Apr 21, 2025 | |
| During the winter months, the natural gas market fundamentals take on questions pertaining to the level of heating demand warranted by colder temperatures but now that we are nearly a month into Q2-2025, it is time to look at the other demand sources impacting the grid's balancing equation. Power burns and LNG are the two key sources as they are important for both their magnitude and volatility. This year, both have shown evidence of a structural shift, with one setting record highs and the other looking dangerously low. Figure 1 | LNG Exports (MMCF/Day) Figure 1 shows our estimate of LNG exports, with the current year in blue. The biggest YoY shift came due to the addition of Plaquemines LNG, a new export terminal which ratcheted up total installed capacity. From December to March, this ... » read more | |
| Friday Apr 18, 2025 | |
| Koomey's Law Sources: https://www.koomey.com/ https://www.koomey.com/koomey_blog/i-appeared-on-the-shift-key-podcast-on-april-3--2024--talking-about-electricity-used-by-ai-and-ict--with-a-focus-on-load-forecasts/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koomey%27s_law The shiny object in today’s electricity market is load growth. In fact, it’s more than a shiny object – it’s a blinding light which has the undivided attention of every system planner, grid operator, utility CEO, project developer, and energy trader. ERCOT takes the cake for load uncertainty. The historical peak demand record is about 85 GW. Last year ERCOT forecast maximum demand for 2030 around 117 GW. This year the transmission service providers submitted 2030 load forecasts around 205 GW (yes!) and ... » read more | |