If you’re a subscriber to any of Energy GPS’s natural gas market flashes, the following figure probably looks familiar. It features average daily thermal generation for the Midcontinent ISO broken down by source with the blue bars representing average coal generation and the orange bars representing average natural gas generation. Both average generation in gigawatts and percentage of average thermal generation are labeled. The row below displays Chicago Citygate prices. The figure is helpful in dissecting the last 20 days of the MISO thermal stack. In the example below, we see that coal generation was taking up close to 50% of the thermal generation at the end of December. In more recent days, natural gas has wrestled back the majority of the stack, rising to 54% or higher. Natural gas prices, on the other hand, have fallen, dropping to $2.70/mmbtu or below. We’ve dissected the coal to gas switching dynamics further in a recent Midwest Natural Gas Market flash, but you don’t have to wait for a flash to be published to see this figure updated anymore as our new MISO Coal to Gas dashboard features this figure and is published daily.

Figure 1 | Avg. MISO Thermal Generation by Source with Chicago Citygate Prices

The new dashboard also allows for easy comparisons to recent years. The figure below, also featured in the dashboard, plots average MISO thermal generation for each day in November, December, and January in 2023 through 2026 against the natural gas proportion of the stack as a percentage. In the figure below, the green circles representing December 2025 show just how impressive the coal generation last month was compared to recent Decembers. They sit below most of the days in December 2023 and 2024, indicating the natural gas proportion of the stack was lower year-on-year across every level of thermal generation. The trend seems to have been left behind in 2025, however. The yellow stars representing the most recent data this January sit far to the left and above data from other years. This indicates the low thermal generation days recently in MISO have seen higher levels of natural gas generation not only compared to last month but also compared to similar thermal days in recent years in the same month.

Figure 2 | MISO NG Proportion vs Avg Thermal Generation, Year-on-Year

The dashboard also features a similar figure as above with month-on-month comparisons. Currently there are three coal to gas dashboards being published. As well as MISO, there is an SPP Coal to Gas dashboard and a PJM Coal to Gas dashboard. Email [email protected] for more information around the Market Analytics content deliveed on a daily basis to our clients.