Good afternoon,
Warm temps have centralized over Northwestern Nevada after the forecast had focused further south. The following week sees temps cooling in the northwest and a lack of high anomalies anywhere else in the west.
Rockies may see slightly more than normal precipitation while California and the Northwest project a dry 14 days.
AECO has fallen 38% over the last three days, by far the largest percentage movement across all hubs. There was still plenty of movement however, as all other hubs fell $0.20 – $0.30 since Tuesday.
Crude fell one dollar earlier today, dropping from a high of $68.60 to $67.59 in a few hours. Gas is ticking up this morning as well, having climbed five cents since the early morning hours.
PV Gas demand fell 35 MMCF day-on-day but still project a continual trend upward moving into next week.
Seattle is showing a large increase in daily highs beginning on the 23rd and extending through the 26th. Temps on the 25th have been boosted as much as 15 degrees over yesterday’s forecast, leaving the area with a high of 71 and that much closer to neutral degree days.
Demand increased a paltry 60 MW yesterday though peak hourly demand jumped 230 MW.
Demand fell 315 MW day-on-day in daily average yesterday, the largest inter-day movement within a weekday in some time. This was largely due to peak demand falling by nearly the same amount.
Sacramento got a boost to its forecast as well, moving from a projected high of 75 for the 24th to 84 as of today. Highs should stay well above normal for at least another seven days.
SP demand stayed mostly flat after picking up just 25 MW day-on-day. Peak demand fell 190 MW, while late-morning hours picked up as much as 500 MW.
Burbank tacked on three to four degrees from the 23rd through the 26th. Not as dramatic as cities further north, but enough to push the highs closer to 80.
Phoenix in on pace to record 95+ degrees for all of 23rd-26th and peak at 97 on the 23rd. The 26th marks a day-on-day increase of seven degrees as well.
Average daily demand fell 50 MW yesterday and continues to pale in comparison to last week, falling 800 MW short.
As expected, no changes to the Nuke Status report for today.
SP gas noms fell from 470,000 MCF on the 18th to 359,000 MCF today.
SP solar crashed yesterday, shedding 1,100 MW day-on-day. Wind made up more than enough however, as the additional 1,700 MW combined with the day’s solar output pushed the day ahead of Wednesday.
Mid-C wind, on the other hand, saw its bottom fall out during most hours, while only managing 1,500 MW at peak.
SP finished a dramatic two days today by returning to normal. This follows a gas outage increase of 3,900 MW beginning on the 18th and extending into the following day.
Hydro
No notable changes in the NW precip forecast. Seattle shows up with a couple days of one-tenth of an inch, but otherwise just a few scattered days of trace precip.
NP remains well below normal in its forecast but picked up additional days of precip, particularly moving into the end of next week.
The 23rd-26th shows up as an increase in temps for all stations though especially in daily max temps. S. Lake Tahoe is now approaching 70 degrees on the 24th.
Spokane River continues to set new max flows though the curve is showing signs of a diminishing slope. Clark Fork and Pend Oreille stand out as two other rivers that continue to build up steam.
Albeni Falls dropped a foot in elevation yesterday. Grand Coulee and Hungry Horse also saw heavy reductions.
Ice Harbor fell another two percentage points, settling at 115% yesterday. Grand Coulee is off two points from its high of 125% on the 15th.
Snow anomaly concentrations are unsurprisingly still concentrated in Washington, Northern Idaho, and Western Montana.
The STP forecast labs behind the NWRFC 10-Day beginning on 22nd and extends through the remainder of the forecast. Watch for a potential peak on the 28th.
Hydro stagnated a bit after falling heavily earlier in the week.
Transmission
New TTC change to note for BPA – COI as 300 MW was cut from 5/3 9:00 AM to 5/3 4:00 PM.
Energy Oracle
For those of you unfamiliar with Energy Oracle, the following description had been included in the automated Oracle emails we have been running. Note: Oracle will now be included in our daily blogs instead.
In a thinly traded market, the opportunities are many, the time horizon to execute (either spec or hedge) is narrow. Ansergy scours 388 potential execution opportunities several times a day and ranks all of those against each other. We call that process “APT” – Algorithmic Power Trading, and yes, this has been used with a real book, and yes again, it does work. You can view APT from a hub, derivative, hour type, or compare all opportunities against each other (we call this the ‘WECC’ level).
In this report, we summarize the term markets for quarters (Prompt Q out two years) for all four derivative types (Outrights, Locational Spreads, Period Rolls, and On|Off). From that expansive list of opportunities, we will cull a few that looked intriguing. Ansergy does not make execution recommendations, we simply highlight execution opportunities. In the tables and charts that follow we will cast light upon a couple that caught our eye. We suggest you examine your firm’s exposure to that product (or lack thereof) and draw your own conclusions.
Note on Hedging vs Speculation: we view the hedger’s (Utility, End User, Generator) decision-making process being the same as the Speculator. In other words, APT is equally apt for either user type since both are driven by the same goal of capturing the best price.
Here are today’s notable charts, derived from the APT Summary rankings.
Palo Verde Heavy Load HeatRate 2018-05
The difference in our forecast in market price makes today an obvious short, but we also produce a range of history in our recommendations for this particular trade.
You’d be in the money if you bought at any point within the blue box and sold at the near contract high of today’s price.
Every trade has a PID (product ID) that can be called within the APT History table linked above, the one depicted is PID 97. Hindsight is 20/20, but this at least gives you an idea of how often the recommendation has been correct.
Enjoy your weekend,
William