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| Thursday May 20, 2021 | |
| As we start to move out of the hot summer days and go trick or treating with our children at the end of October, the fall leaves are changing and it seems like Thanksgiving Dinner is upon us just like that. Once we finish the big meal with family and friends (except for 2020 - pandemic), the day of wreckoning known as "Black Friday" pentrates most households as many get up early and sit in the parking lot of some big chain store to get that $99 flat-screen television special or some laptop that is deemed steeply discounted compared to its retail price. Once in the door, consumerism is real and the shopping carts are full of Christmas gifts along with other items not necessarily on the list but who can pass up a great deal right?? Oh, do not forget about the ... » read more | |
| Wednesday May 19, 2021 | |
| It is that time of year where prognostications for the upcoming tropical storm season begin publishing. The Colorado State University at Fort Collins, home of those stalwart Rams, issued its highly-anticipated annual Atlantic hurricane season outlook, as has IBM’s The Weather Company. NOAA will release theirs later this week. The two former entities are expecting a busier than normal tropical storm and hurricane season, which poses significant bullish risks to gas production, but nearly equal bearish risks to demand. CSU is expecting this year to be more active than normal with 17 named storms spanning an estimated 80 days, and 4 major hurricanes spanning 9 days. CSU is giving a 44% chance of at least one major hurricane hitting the Gulf Coast, and a ... » read more | |
| Tuesday May 18, 2021 | |
| Last Thursday the Center for Disease Control (CDC) made an announcement that those who have been vaccinated are able to resume indoor and outdoor activities without the need to wear a mask or social distance. Many states had already lifted such restrictions but now that the official guidance has been released a number of states, particularly in the center of the continent lifted the mandates that were imposed more than one year ago. It only took a few hours for the public to react. Over the weekend I was out on the town and most if not all people across Cincinnati had dropped the masks and were enjoying the sunshine. Sidewalk cafe's were packed and local news stories showed lots of smiling faces as communities were allowed to gather once again. Figure 1 | The ... » read more | |
| Monday May 17, 2021 | |
| The power grid continues down the path of moving towards more renewables across the country and the push to retire the likes of coal, old inefficient natural gas and in some cases nuclear facilities. In today's blog, we dissect the MISO market where there are some subtle shifts that are noteworthy as well as they lay the foundation of what is to come over the next few years as the push to retire coal is real and it is being replaced by the likes of solar and the new technology of batteries. Figure 1 depicts the EIA-860M January Release, the red arrow in 2022 panel shows 6492 MW of coal plants planned to retire in MISO. The same arrow in Figure 2, depicting EIA-860M February release, shows a fall in these planned retirements to 6222 MW. This delta in MW can be attributed to the ... » read more | |
| Friday May 14, 2021 | |
| We recently discussed the increasingly serious dry conditions in both the Pacific Northwest and California towards the end of last month in our Newsletter Article “Drought(ing) the Summer……”. Throughout the first half of May, the situation in the Pacific Northwest has only grown more extreme. Precipitation for the entire Columbia River system for the month so far is under 50% of what we see in an average year. Since the beginning of March, the Northwest River Forecast Center’s (NWRFC) forecasted water runoff at The Dalles for the April through July period has fallen steadily, reaching a new low since the beginning of the water year last October with Thursday’s forecast. Let’s focus in on the Snake River Basin, where the ... » read more | |
| Thursday May 13, 2021 | |
| Many of you probably already receive Gary Ackerman’s newsletter, the Friday Burrito, if your employer is a member of the Western Power Trading Forum (WPTF). For those of you who don’t, it is a thorough and grounded but often humorous look at the weekly hot topics in the Western US energy markets, and we highly recommend giving it a read, even if you must land a “hot” copy from a friend. This year, a few of us analysts here at EnergyGPS have decided to have a bit of fun and really hone our guesses for the annual CAISO curtailment competition. Every year, Gary offers a cash price for anyone who can accurately predict the total quantity of renewables that will be curtailed in CAISO by the end of the year. We were in the mood for some light-hearted analytics, and we ... » read more | |
| Wednesday May 12, 2021 | |
| The AESO market has featured some unprecedented price strength and volatility this spring, largely due to an enormous amount of gas-fired generation capacity on outage. However, those outages are winding down, which should take some of the steam out of the Alberta Power Pool pricing until summer kicks in. AESO daily flat average power prices this April and May have been their strongest for those months in at least six years. While loads are showing a modest recovery to last year, they have not yet outpaced 2019 or 2018 levels. Wind generation for both April and this month-to-date has been in line with previous years. Yet, daily and hourly wind output has remained highly volatile. When it drops, the burden of serving load shifts to AESO's thermal ... » read more | |
| Tuesday May 11, 2021 | |
| It has been one year since the pandemic hit. Lives across the world have been in an arrested state as school closures, work from home orders and travel restrictions hit our continent. By and large these measures are lifted across the country but has daily behavior and the economy recovered? At EnergyGPS we get the privilege to talk to market participants all over the continent and one of the central themes over the past year is the impact of the restrictions on daily life and of course energy fundamentals of the immediate region. By looking at some of the temperature regressed power demand the conclusion is that the impacts are a mixed bag. Some areas of the continent have made more than a full recovery and some, due to ongoing societal restrictions are yet to see demand ... » read more | |
| Monday May 10, 2021 | |
| Depending on your age, there are several places that the saying 'Game On, Game Off' come into play. In my case, it goes all the way back to the Wayne' World where an intense version of one-on-one street hockey took place only to be disrupted by honking cars. Wayne and Garth would ultimately grab the hockey net and move it to the side of the street as they watch the car go by (Game Off), only to drag it back into the middle of the residential street and yell 'Game On' to which the 'match' continued only to be disrupted my many other things over a period of time. Figure 1 | Game On, Game Off If you are a football fan, specifically a Baltimore Ravens or San Francisco 49ers loyalist, you can recall the 2013 Super Bowl where the two Harbraugh brothers (John and Jim) coached against each ... » read more | |
| Friday May 7, 2021 | |
| ERCOT forward pricing has always been a 'tale of two curves'. As anyone who tracks the ERCOT market knows, forward prices in the prompt year or two are based on expectations of marginal cost combined and scarcity. After the first couple of years, the forward curve rapidly declines, often reaching low levels in the out years. Figure 1 depicts the forward ERCOT North Peak (blue) and Off Peak (orange) curves as of January of each year. That is, the top pane shows forward curves as of January 2018 where the y-axis shows price in $ per MWh and the x-axis shows future years, the next pane shows curves as of January 2019, and so on. The pattern is consistent. The front of the curve is high and the back of the curve is much lower, regardless of the overall price level. The front of the ... » read more | |