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| Tuesday Apr 1, 2025 | |
| While solar growth and battery flexibility have dominated renewable energy discussions lately across the US, wind generation has quietly made some moves in PJM as discussed in our special report titled “Wind(ing) Road for PJM”. Though new capacity additions have slowed, Mother Nature has delivered a reminder of wind’s influence on grid dynamics. As this report explores, wind’s hourly generation profile is once again becoming a major player in grid operations, despite being less talked about in mainstream energy circles. Figure 1 | PJM Load and Renewable Supply Components – 12x24 Profiles Since early March, wind output across North America has surged to multi-year highs, especially in regions like PJM. Compared to 2023 and 2024, wind generation in 2025 has ... » read more | |
| Monday Mar 31, 2025 | |
| A recent survey of oil and natural gas executives gave us some interesting insight into the thoughts of industry leaders. The key word was uncertainty. Despite plenty of news pointing towards growth in the coming years, geopolitical instability, especially around trade and tariffs, seems to be weighing heavily on investment decisions. For example, while the new administration promises to use all levers available to boost Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) production, potential increases in the price of steel make said development much less tempting. Figure 1 | LNG Exports (MMCF/Day) As mentioned, LNG of the larger reversals in energy policy for this new administration (new development at a faster pace) whereas the previous sought top-down oversight on this growing industry. The chart above ... » read more | |
| Friday Mar 28, 2025 | |
| ERCOT currently reports that they have a little over 10 GW of installed battery capacity, and one has only to glance at the supply stack to see that battery dispatch is becoming an increasingly visible component. The figure below shows ERCOT's reported monthly capacity by resource type for March 2025, alongside an example day's interval-level supply stack breakdown. Figure 1 | ERCOT Fuel Mix and Monthly Capacity The right-hand figure above provides an example of a fairly typical day (March 26th). Net load isn't shown here, but net load on the 26th had similar morning and evening peaks, with the evening just slightly lower than the morning. The timing of battery dispatch (dark red) aligns with the timing of the morning and evening peaks in net load. Figure 2 | 12x24 Average Net Load ... » read more | |
| Thursday Mar 27, 2025 | |
| The headline yesterday on the local news ticker read “Severe weather threat paired with record-breaking heat Wednesday”. The title is an encapsulation of some of the unusual and rapid changes taking place in the Pacific Northwest region that are having big impacts on Northwest hydro, both in the short-term as well as the outlook for the rest of the 2025 water year. Until this week, most of March has been on the cool side. When the precipitation started showing up after a dry end to the month of February, the region saw significant accumulations of snow throughout the region, including the low elevation sites in the Cascades. Figure 1 | West Side Daily Snow Water Equivalent (Inches) The figure above plots the daily snow water equivalent (SWE) ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Mar 26, 2025 | |
| As we approach the end of March, outage season is in full swing as total US nuclear outages surpassed 18 GW on Monday. The amount offline has quickly climbed over the past two months. February began with only around 3.2 GW offline. That jumped to 11.4 GW at the beginning of this month. The figure below shows the 2025 outages in yellow along with our forecast in dark blue. The 2024 outage line is green while the 2023 line is teal. Note that our forecast includes only plants 100% offline for refueling and estimated dates for current unplanned outages. Refueling refers to the scheduled maintenance that each plant completes in 18 or 24- month cycles. These always align with shoulder seasons, either the spring or fall, when demand tends to be lower and grids can afford to lose baseload nuclear ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Mar 25, 2025 | |
| The arrival of spring marked more than just a seasonal shift—it brought a surprising change in the natural gas market, as we discussed in our latest article titled “Back to Square One”. After a long winter of steady withdrawals, the latest EIA storage report revealed a return to net injections, catching the market off guard and triggering a sharp price drop. As we head into Summer 2025, all eyes are on how demand will evolve in this new landscape. This past winter, despite global warmth, delivered colder-than-usual temperatures across much of the U.S., leading to the strongest storage drawdown seen in three years. Now, with storage volumes significantly lower than last year, the race to replenish supplies is on—offering both opportunity and volatility for producers ... » read more | |
| Monday Mar 24, 2025 | |
| In the chaotic world of power, one of the most reliable relationships is between demand and temperature. Cold temperatures generate heating demand, and warm temperatures generate cooling demand. But what about the middle? Flat average temperatures around 65 degrees, meaning a little above room temperature in the day but not to cold at night, signal a low point for demand, something of a goldilocks zone where everyone is comfortable without turning on any switches or spinning any knobs. And as we speak, the West looks very comfortable. Figure 1 | CAISO Demand (MW) vs Temperature (F), February through April Our first figure shows the relationship between temperature and power described above for California. Points in yellow represent days in 2024, and blue is 2025. Triangles stand for the ... » read more | |
| Friday Mar 21, 2025 | |
| “Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it” goes the quip, frequently attributed to Mark Twain, but really - who knows? If the available photo catalog tells us anything, Mark, a southerner by birth, stayed cool on warm days in his senior years in signature white linen suits, enjoying a cigar, and not worrying too much about his hair. Figure 1| Mark Twain Staying Cool and Looking Cool Times have changed and today, in much of the US, people certainly do something about the weather when it gets hot: they turn on the AC. With the annual variations in weather, it can be difficult to accurately assess electric load growth. In recent weeks, EGPS released two special reports relating to ERCOT load to parse ... » read more | |
| Thursday Mar 20, 2025 | |
| The spring season brings with it volatile weather conditions, especially within the South Central region known as ERCOT. Over the past couple of days, we have seen temperatures rise to 82 degrees in Houston while inland topped the 85 degree marker, which in turn had an impact on the actual load profile. On the supply side, wind generation has been stout earlier in the week while yesterday saw a slight shift down. There has been congestion in play from West to all other trading hubs as the stout wind stitched together with some transmission constraints led to the midday and evening ramp prices to diverge from the rest of the grid. Today’s wind level has shifted dramatically lower while the power demand profile is muted as temperatures are looking to pull back ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Mar 19, 2025 | |
| In our last blog about Alberta, we focused on the cold during the month of February. It was the coldest since 2021 with over 1400 cumulative HDDs. By the end of the month, temperatures flipped warmer than normal, and the trend carried through a good portion of March. Over the weekend, there was another short stint of cold days. Heating demand rose while wind generation fell, but ultimately, the grid had more than enough megawatts to go around. Now the province is looking forward to some warm weather as the season transitions from winter to spring. Figure 1 | Actual Temperatures and Differences from Normal for Alberta Just in time for the first day of spring, Alberta is expecting well-above normal temperatures. Today highs are expected to be over 40 degrees, as shown below in the forecast ... » read more | |