Mike’s Take – Oct 2

Good Morning,

It’s a new day and a new water year.  Well, actually yesterday was the start of the new water year and it began auspiciously for the NWRFC.  One of their water supply reports was down, but not that it matters much since it’s only the second day of the water year.

I find it interesting the RFC is already forecasting dry anomalies in the northwest as both Coulee and Bonneville are posted at 97% on the first day of the water year.   Ansergy is doing something similar though our “out of the box” forecast for both is 93% and 94%, respectively.  I suspect we will be consistently lower than the govt as we use a higher El Nino weighting for our balance of water year snow/precip forecast.  Speaking of that forecast we will be re-running our history over the weekend and publish a new current and historical forecast on Monday.

Scanning through the fundies this morning rendered a few observations worth sharing.  First, Burbank temperatures will be in the low 70s on Sunday and Monday and loads in the ISO have tanked, though more so at NP than SP.

001_BurbTemps

From the high 80s to the low 70s is what Burbank will see starting on Sunday.  Check out the precip – that is a big storm and makes you think of “EL NINO!”, or at least it makes me think of it.  NOAA updated its weekly index yesterday to 2.3, contrast that with the 97-98 which registered 2.4 for the same week.  By the way, that is the first time the 97-98 has surpassed 2015 since July, but the current year is still the second biggest as of 10/1 in the last 30 years.

Loads in the ISO tell a bearish story:

001_ISOloads

001_NPloads

The first plot is total ISO and the second is just PG&E.  Most of the haircuts as of yesterday have been at NP15 but I’d expect a massive SP15 drop on Monday.   Some of that lost load will be offset by cuts in solar but those should be offset somewhat by increases in wind:

001_SPrenew

We are already seeing a big uptick in wind but expect more as the storm blows through the LA basin and hits the turbines in Palm Springs.   Looking up north I note the NWRFC has cut its flow forecasts (a half a nuke) in yesterday’s 10 day:

001_RFC10day

Not that anyone will need the energy, the weather in the northwest is returning to balmy:

001_MidCtemps

Balmy then another precip event as it seems we are entering a period where weather is becoming more volatile.  Gazing just north of Mid-C I see the folks running BC Hydro’s system actually bought some energy yesterday:

001_NIflows

Noteworthy because the purchases happen to fall on Oct 1 (start of the water year, start of October, start of Q4, and precedes the start of the tranny derates) and it was the only set of hours Powerex imported in the last two weeks – definitely worthy of monitoring closely, though every time I’ve gotten excited about a possible change in flows on the northern intertie they have returned to selling.    Flows into California from Palo and Mead also have changed in the last week:

ISO_flows

Not as dramatic as the Northern Intertie but clearly imports are off a bit, almost the equivalent of the DC derate next week.  That would suggest that the ISO could pull from the east whatever incremental energy is lost from the DC derate rendering the derate mooter than it was.

Happy trading and enjoy your weekend,

Mike