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| Wednesday Mar 16, 2022 | |
| Springtime is moving into Texas. Bluebonnets are already starting to appear on some roadsides; baseball programs are starting their early season workouts; and the beaches of Padre Island are starting to fill in with the untanned pates of spring breakers. Figure 1 | The Lupinus Texensis is a surefire sign that spring has arrived in Texas. The warming weather brings a bearish weight to the ERCOT power market by diminishing loads. As Texans emerge from their winter cocoons to spend more time outside and the temperatures warm power demand wanes as less electricity is needed to heat and light homes. We have discussed at length that ERCOT’s weather-normalized loads have been posting impressive growth rates over the past couple of years, but within the course of a year ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Mar 15, 2022 | |
| March is typically the month when the natural gas market shifts its focus on demand drivers. Residential/Commercial heating load , which is largely a product of weather, gives way to power burn demand from electric generation as cooling demand ramps up in the southern latitudes. The population turns off furnaces and turns on the air conditioning. It is appropriate at this time to look at some of the year on year changes we are seeing across the Lower 48 with respect to the power grid dispatch to determine the level of power burns we could expect this summer. The best way to accomplish this is to look at electric demand minus the impact of renewables generation to the grid. This would then provide a glimpse of the thermal commit needed to meet the balancing requirements. In ... » read more | |
| Monday Mar 14, 2022 | |
| California continues to show its hand of having too much supply hitting the grid, especially on the weekends when the power demand is shifting lower as businesses are not operating like they tend to do during the week. As a result, the CAISO system operators are at their seats edge each hour as they wonder what the wind generation, imports and actual loads will look like as the only option they have is to curtail renewable energy in the form of solar. We have discussed the renewable penetration tied to the solar fleet, both behind the meter and utility scaled facilities over the years. Figure 1 | CAISO Solar Capacity Breakdown by Month We have also touched on the influx of battery capacity that has hit the grid over the past year, to which is now penetrating the real-time ... » read more | |
| Friday Mar 11, 2022 | |
| From time to time, we read and report on articles and publications from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL). Recently, they published a paper regarding surface wind observations and their relationship to interannual variation in wind energy output. As usual, their work contains great analysis and insights. At Energy GPS, we tend to get deep into the weeds of specific regions or projects, so it’s always useful to take a step back and read work like this that examines nationwide energy trends. In the case of the paper referenced, the wind speed component was highlighted and worth discussing in today's blog. One factor that makes wind speed and power analysis difficult is that the observation stations often aren’t located at the center of the wind power plant. » read more | |
| Thursday Mar 10, 2022 | |
| Daylight savings time is the practice of setting the clock forward by one hour so there is longer daylight during the evening period when everyone is still operating in a productive manner. Some areas do not observe such as Arizona or Hawaii. There is always conversation of doing away with the change and keeping the spring-forward mindset all year round. Figure 1 | Daylight Savings Time Adjustment From an energy standpoint, the change impacts the grid in a way that the demand profile shifts a bit with another hour of higher volume showing up in the evening ramp while the morning period stays a bit darker until the official start of summer rolls into the conversation as the overall daylight period stretches outward. Another impact is with the renewable solar ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Mar 8, 2022 | |
| The last of the winter weather looks to be upon us across most of the Lower 48 as the 6-10 and 11-15 day periods have adjusted warmer across the board. As it stands right now, the near-term conditions in the South Central, specifically Texas are going to bring colder weather as far south as Galveston. This means the likes of Dallas, Austin and Houston are all looking the overnight lows dropping down into the low 40’s with the weekend showing Saturday sitting in the mid 30’s. The daytime highs will be all over the board with Houston ranging from 52 degrees today to upward to 73 degrees on Thursday. Figure 1 | Average Daily Temperatures – Austin/Dallas/Houston Such a change in the weather pattern is being reflected in the day-ahead auction results within the ... » read more | |
| Monday Mar 7, 2022 | |
| California has always been known for its sunshine and glitz and glamour in Southern California from Hollywood to the coastal beaches of San Diego. Such weather and atmosphere are two things that drive the overall power markets as the former now controls much of the midday block of hours via behind the meter and utility-scaled solar projects while the latter takes on the morning and evening ramp demand profile depending on the time of year. For example, this past Friday and Saturday delivered more clouds to the region, thus solar generation was substantially lower than what we have seen in the past few weeks. Figure 1 | CAISO Solar Profile – Hourly The graph below is an illustration of both solar and wind potential generation with the former sitting in the top pane and ... » read more | |
| Friday Mar 4, 2022 | |
| The implied heat rate is the standard measuring stick used by electricity traders to evaluate the relative value of power compared to natural gas. What is the 'implied' heat rate and why is it important? Let’s start with a physical heat rate. This is the number of MMBtu’s of input fuel (typically natural gas) required to produce a MWh of electricity. For example, a combined cycle natural gas plant requires about 7 MMBtus per MWh of electricity produced. The “implied” heat rate is a simple calculation – electricity price for a given time period divided by the natural gas price for that same time period. For example, if the electricity price is $30 per MWh and the gas price is $3.00 per MMBtu, the implied heat rate is $30 per MWh / $3 per MMBtu which ... » read more | |
| Thursday Mar 3, 2022 | |
| ERCOT is no stranger to growth in renewable energy, making impressive strides in adding both wind and solar capacity over the past year. Wind and solar generation together accounted for a full one third of all load satisfied in ERCOT this February. Of course, as non-dispatchable renewable energy plays a larger and larger role in the grid, curtailments become increasingly common. As we move closer to the end of winter and the period when curtailments have been most significant in the past, we are taking a deeper look at ERCOT and how the changing resources on the grid are likely to impact curtailments moving forward in a Newsletter Special Report, titled “ERCOT Curtailments Looming”. Below is an excerpted portion of the report. The role and importance of ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Mar 2, 2022 | |
| The next few days could get a bit sloppy for the Sumas gas market. Warming temperatures combined with a well-supplied power market leaves the region staring at the prospect of a gross over abundance of gas. Ever since the Westcoast pipeline in B.C. was repaired following the October 2018 explosion, then expanded, Sumas has found itself in a generally well-supplied gas environment. To be sure, there are still scores of days in the depths of summer and winter in which gas demand outstrips supply, necessitating withdraws from the region’s storage facilities. But, the market-long days are increasing. This week puts this dynamic on stark display. Despite still being very much in the midst of the winter, Sumas will confront a situation in which it could have ... » read more | |