Good afternoon,
The Northwest gets the only semblance of a warmup this week, but that will eventually extend into the rest of the west as we move into the second-half of the two week forecast.
Rockies should get well above normal precip totals this week while the Northwest and California remain relatively dry over the next fourteen days.
AECO dropped below a dollar and now sits at $0.98, down nearly 30 cents from just three days ago. Socal-Citygate continues to bounce all over the board after increasing $1.27 from Sunday, though that is still a $0.59 decrease week-on-week. Socal-Border increased $0.34 since Sunday as well.
Gas fell three cents from a daily high of $2.82 this morning but has since rallied another cent. Crude took a $0.55 dive then made up the difference over the following hour.
Mid-C Gas demand has come off 130 MMCF since the 21st as the region dives further into neutral degree days.
Seattle should get within a degree of 80 by tomorrow, enough for 18 degrees above normal, and will also act as the cap on the first true warm up of the spring. Temps quickly fall off as Saturday brings a high of just 53 while next week brings a return of normal highs.
Demand was flat day-on-day yesterday while down 450 MW week-on-week.
Sacramento gets a similar forecast as Seattle as highs fall from 81 today to 69 over the weekend. No anomalies to note in the next three weeks as highs mostly hug the normal line for the foreseeable future. Daily lows extend five degrees above normal beginning next week, however.
Demand is up over 500 MW week-on-week as temps climb into the 80’s. Loads had a modest 30 MW increase over Monday yesterday as well, though peak hourly demand fell 320 MW.
SP demand stayed mostly flat after falling 23 MW day-on-day yesterday. On the other hand, week-on-week demand has risen an impressive 850 MW.
Burbank should reach a few degrees above normal today before making a steady decline toward a high of 63 by the 1st (12 degrees below normal). There is potential for a return of 80-degree days by the end of next week though current projections show 79.
Phoenix is set to reach into the high 90’s through Saturday before seeing the floor fall out as temps dive as low as 80 by the 2nd, ten degrees short of normal. This cooldown looks short-lived however, highs will be back into the 90’s by the 3rd.
Average daily demand fell 200 MW day-on-day yesterday but remains nearly 1,000 MW higher than the same day last week.
No changes to the Nuke Status report for today.
PV gas noms are up nearly 40,000 MCF since the 23rd. NP noms fell 68,000 MCF day-on-day after a strong rally coming off the weekend.
SP solar held strong at 6,390 MW yesterday, off 170 MW day-on-day, but well within the weekly average. Wind was negligible during peak hours with a generation of just 179 MW.
Mid-C wind nearly fell off the map as well as yesterday peaked at just 694 MW, down from a high of 3,089 on Monday.
ISO outages stayed flat yesterday after recovering from last week’s blip in the radar.
Hydro
The dry forecast we saw all of last week is mostly disappeared as Seattle projects over 0.60″ on Saturday. The East side of the Cascades will get its fair share as well, though with temps comfortably above freezing, it should fall as rain in most of the mountains.
Just a couple trace precip days to report for Tahoe though a tenth of an inch looms too far out on the horizon to bank on it.
Runoffs will get a bit of a reprieve beginning this weekend as temps cool off considerably. Tahoe in particular should see more than 20 degrees slashed from its highs.
Spokane River finally came off its ten-years highs and began to slow down with close to 2,000 CFS removed since Saturday.
Spokane’s slow down isn’t due to the lake filling up as each is moving in concert. With still plenty of snow in the higher elevations, we’ll see how tomorrow’s high of 80 has an effect.
Meanwhile, the Clark Fork is building up CFS after tacking on a 45% increase since last week. The river is now just 5,000 CFS shy of the 10-year high.
Libby and Dworshak continue to build while Grand Coulee and Hungry Horse make room.
Here is a five-day difference in snow cover following the Northwest’s first true warmup (still in progress).
The STP forecast moves well ahead of the 10-Day beginning on the 29th and keeps that pace through the remainder of the ten days. STP expects a peak by Tuesday, while the 10-Day sees growth throughout the forecast.
HL and LL both continue to decline.
Transmission
BPA-COI TTC is set at 3,500 MW through Saturday afternoon before full recovering until next Thursday for 30 hours at 4,356 MW.
BPA-NOB should hold steady at 3,100 MW until 5/7 when TTC drops to 2,990 MW through the remainder of the forecast.
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.
The market has taken off since last Friday while the Ansergy forecast is mostly flat in the same span of time.
Ansergy has been recommending a buy since the 10th. Eight of the 13 days would have generated a profit if sold today.
Every trade has a PID (product ID) that can be called within the APT History table linked above, the one depicted is PID 142. Hindsight is 20/20, but this at least gives you an idea of how often the recommendation has been correct.
Hope you are having a great week,
William