Good Afternoon,
The NWRFC updated its 120 day forecast (STP) this afternoon. No big surprises but its worthy of a closer examination.
Energy Scorecard
- Dec – Up 160 aMW; more like a rounding error but it was rounding on top of a five-year high, and rounding up.
- Jan – Down 120 aMW; also a rounding error, though seems to us that it was rounded in the right direction, but yet has more to come, we believe
- Feb – Up 260 aMW
- Mar – Up 800 aMW
We stole our own thunder in Dec and Jan, but our inclination is to suggest both are high, though Dec will be impacted more by the massive precip anomalies realized since Oct, so probably has less room to fall, especially given cold anomalies in the forecast and BPA’s need to generate to serve load. Jan, on the other hand, still seems overstated given an acknowledged 97% of normal in the RFC’s own water supply forecast.
February remains near the five-year average and we can have no qualms with that, given where we stand in the current water year. March was a surprise, akin to our Jan sentiments, and is now over the five-year average.
The greatest deviations from last week are all occurring in the last week of the forecast, in March. Too far out to say yay or nay, but do note the massive anomalies to the average from today til Jan 31. Those are highly suspect, in our opinion.
In this view we compare the current forecast against the last four years using the same week for those years. 2014 was the biggest of the water years in that group, but note how March 2017 is greater than that very big water year. Hence our conclusion that it is most likely over-stated and will be backed down as we approach, assuming normal snow til then.