Featured Articles
| Friday Jul 20, 2018 | |
| We are in the full swing of summer, and that means it is fire season. Last weekend I rafted 50 miles of the Deschutes River in Oregon from Warm Springs to Maupin. The Deschutes River drains the Oregon Cascades running south to north before feeding into the Columbia River just above The Dalles Dam. The 500 kV DC lines running from The Dalles to Los Angeles are close to the Deschutes in this part of the state. Just a few weeks ago that portion of the Deschutes was hit by several wildfires, including the Boxcar Fire depicted below. The landscape along the river for most of my trip was charred. We saw a lot of wildlife, presumably hanging out close to the river where there was still plenty of vegetation. Figure 1 | Boxcar Fire in Central Oregon along Deschutes River In recent days the fire ... » read more | |
| Thursday Jul 19, 2018 | |
| Since the founding of the United States of America, we have seen a struggle between the East and West. From squabbles over which coast is the leader in industry with tech in the West and our finance centers in the East, to city residents arguing over which side of town to live. Looking at PJM, the East/West divide is ever present with new natural gas fired plants popping up in the East while the West is mainly comprised of large coal generators. The West Hub is situated right in the middle of PJM between Ohio coal and coastal gas generators which has resulted in an interesting tug-of-war. Looking at Figure 1, we can see that the West Hub LMP reflects this as it generally sits between the East and AD Hub LMPs. Figure 1 | Select PJM Hub LMPs PJM covers a vast geographical area ranging from ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Jul 18, 2018 | |
| The time is now in the Lone Star state as the power demand numbers are ready to move up another 2-3 GW during the later afternoon hours. This is due to continued extreme heat hitting the Dallas and Austin areas while Houston is finally joining the party as its daily average moves up into the low 90's for two days. Figure 1 | ERCOT Daily Average Temperatures for Major Cities - Actual and Forecast As a result, the ERCOT Day-Ahead clears have been moving up with Wednesday's hubs sitting around $350 across the heavy load. If you look at the hourly price profile for the North, the later afternoon hours have moved up from the $841 mark yesterday to over $1,500 for today. Figure 2 | ERCOT Day-Ahead Auction Settles - By Period The Prices(Changes) section to the right (Figure 2) ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Jul 17, 2018 | |
| A lot of time has been spent on the Southern California gas market issues this year. This is for good reason. The region has reliability issues due to storage and transportation outages that are causing the supply to be severely constrained. This has largely overshadowed the dynamics that are playing out in Northern California. The two rate cases that were negotiated with the CPUC over the past ten years has caused a number of structural issues on the system that seem to be coming to a head this summer. PG&E had quite a few cost increases go through as a result of the rate cases. That has led to a dramatic increase in transportation prices into and through their system. As a result, the long term contracting for transport services has continually dropped which puts a ... » read more | |
| Monday Jul 16, 2018 | |
| When people throughout the country think of the Pacific Northwest (PNW) it is my belief that they imagine Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. At least growing up in the region that is what I always thought of when I heard a reference to the PNW. In the power markets however most traders think of the PNW, or rather, MidC, as Washington and Oregon, with bits of the Idaho panhandle thrown in for good measure (Avista loads). This is the region folks look at for calculating the MidC load associated with its supply/demand balance, using transmission flows to/from British Columbia, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and California to finish off the MidC's equation. Estimating the flows to/from these other regions is always difficult, and best done with a production cost model ... » read more | |
| Friday Jul 13, 2018 | |
| It seems like ERCOT is in a bit of a re-setting mode right now in both the short term and the long term markets. Buyers and sellers are like tired boxers in the middle rounds of a 12 round bout. They are circling, jabbing, trying to figure out the next move as the summer months unfold. Prior to where we are at, February through June 2018 saw the ERCOT August On Peak contract be the premium US electricity product – the belle of the ball. This was due to the Coal retirement announcement in October combined with some high prices in early January/February 2018 when the units actually went offline and the Polar Vortex hit the Lower 48, including Texas. Such events triggered the August contract to shift from around $100 up to $180 per MWh. A few price spikes during ... » read more | |
| Thursday Jul 12, 2018 | |
| Last week was record breaking weather in the Northeast as a heat wave passed through the region. The beginning of the week ISONE was expecting temperatures to cause high levels of demand and brought back as much generation from outage as possible. This kept the Mass Hub real time LMP at a discount to the day ahead, and it looked like the grid had this locked down with weather runs showing cooler weather on the 5th coming out of the holiday. However, market participants were in for an unpleasant surprise as they returned to work on Thursday. The forecast had quickly shifted with temperatures heating back up driving highs back into the 90s. Figure 1 | Boston Temperatures Actual and Forecast Thermal generation throughout the ISO fired back up to levels seen before the holiday. Looking ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Jul 11, 2018 | |
| The last 36 hours in Portland Metro area have been filled with clouds and a little breeze that has kept the cooler weather intact. As I walked to get a cup of coffee yesterday afternoon, the sun started to peek out from behind the clouds and it was then that you realized just how how it can get in the Pacific Northwest during the month of July (and August for that matter). As it stands right now, Mother Nature has the weather forecasters calling for daytime highs to be in the mid-90's on Thursday and staying in the low 90's all weekend. Figure 1 | Portland's Daily Weather Forecast - Actual/Forecast This prompted the Midc heavy load bilateral market to shift up to $39 for today (Wednesday) after indexing $26 for Tuesday. The shift up was substantial but still pales ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Jul 10, 2018 | |
| Besides day to day fundamentals coverage, EnergyGPS provides several forecasting tools to help determine value in the natural gas futures market. One of our client's favorite is the Natural Gas Balance Sheet as it takes a forward looking assessment and forecast of the major supply-demand components across the Lower 48. We assess production, imports, exports, LNG and ResCom demand to provide a monthly storage balance that extends out 18 months. Figure 1 | Sample of the Energy GPS Natural Gas Supply/ Demand Balance Sheet As you can see in the figure above, each component mentioned above is laid out in a format that has the supply as a positive number while the demand is negative to the grid. Over the past decade, the grid has reshaped itself several times as the demand has outpaced ... » read more | |
| Monday Jul 9, 2018 | |
| If you are a National Basketball Association (NBA) fan, you are aware that LeBron James has committed to play for the Los Angeles Lakers as he signed a 4-year contract right after free agency began. This is a big deal as he is noteably one of the best players of all-time and still has alot of life in his basketball career. Figure 1 | LeBron James's is a Los Angeles Laker - Jersey #23 if you followed the story, it was not much after midnight on the first day of the NBA free agent courting period when LeBron and the Lakers general manager Earvin Johnson (goes by the name 'Magic', you mihgt have hear of him). When they sat down for a three hour conversation, I am sure there was a lot that was covered from a basketball operations standpoint as well as getting to know each other a ... » read more | |
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