Good afternoon,
A heat wave is settling in on the Northwest and is set to spread throughout the West as the latter half of the two-week forecast takes hold.
The Four Corners should get the majority of western precipitation this week as the Northwest continues to pace dry. The average looks to take over as we move into days 10+.
Peak SP-PV and SP-NP spreads in the day ahead markets have fallen for three consecutive days.
AECO rallied hard after shooting up $1.00 since Tuesday, a more than 100% increase. Socal-Citygate shed $0.51 in the same span of time.
Natural Gas futures fell off three cents from yesterday after rallying $0.15 from the week prior.
Mid-C gas demand fell to 1,106 MMCF, down from 1,237 MMCF on the 25th. That marks a 152 MMCF drop from the 30-day average.
Seattle will dip as low as six degrees below normal beginning tomorrow as a cooling period should stay through Monday before another wave of warm weather takes over. Highs should bounce back into the 70’s by the end of next week.
Demand fell 100 MW yesterday as most of the region was enveloped in neutral degree-day weather. Demand is down 350 MW week-on-week as well.
Demand fell 230 MW day-on-day yesterday after spending nearly the entire week at 11,160 MW. The drop in average daily demand was largely driven by peak hourly demand falling 480 MW.
Daily highs in Sacramento will fall into the 60’s over the weekend, dropping nine degrees below average at its lowest. Next week will see a return of mid-80’s however, eventually leading to temps 10 degrees above normal by the 5th.
SP demand came off 105 MW yesterday, bucking the flat trend seen in the rest of the week. Peak hourly demand finished 300 MW lower.
Burbank’s daily high should continue to fall, eventually hitting a high of just 62 on the 1st, 13 degrees below normal. We should see a return of 80-degree temps by the 4th, though today’s forecast comes in seven degrees cooler.
Highs in Phoenix will stay in the upper 90’s today and tomorrow before settling toward a short cool-down as highs drop to just 77 by the 2nd, 13 degrees below normal. Triple digits loom on the forecast, however, as the 9th calls for a high of 102.
Average daily demand fell 70 MW yesterday, though loads remain well above levels from last week.
As expected, no changes to the Nuke Status report for today.
PV gas noms fell from 55,000 MCF yesterday after rising 96,000 MCF the day before.
NP wind continued a big week yesterday with an hourly max generation of 1,117 MW, the highest hour in the past three weeks.
Mid-C wind remained mired below 1,000 MW in all hours.
After building up gas outages to 5,143 MW as of the 25th, all but 1,697 MW returned online as of yesterday, falling lower than the period average.
Hydro
Most Mid-C stations can expect a moderate amount of precip to fall over the weekend, especially Western Montana where Kalispell is expecting over half an inch tomorrow.
The Sierra Nevada can expect close to a half inch of precip in aggregate over the next week, though this remains well below average.
All of NP will get a reprieve from heat over the weekend, but a return of above-normal temps are in store next week.
Northwest heat this past week sent the Cascades into full runoff mode as is reflected in the Wenatchee and Skagit rivers. I expect Spokane to rebound as well as Eastern Washington gets 80-degree temps today, putting a large dent into the upper-elevations.
Grand Coulee is just two-tenths of an inch from its planned low.
Ice Harbor dropped three percentage points yesterday as the warm up made its damage.
While the runoff has started in earnest, thanks to an extended and cool early spring, stations have remained well above normal in the upper Northwest and Montana.
Flathead and Kootenai hold the largest anomalies having added more than 20 percentage points over the past week. Most Northwestern stations added to their anomalies thanks to delayed runoffs.
The NWRFC 10-Day shows an 1,800 MW aMW increase through Tuesday, and STP isn’t far behind with a 1,600 aMW increase in the same span of time. Projections taper off toward the end of the forecast.
Transmission
New TTC change to note for BPA – COI as TTC is set to drop to 3,400 MW for 8 hours on the 11th (from 8AM to 4PM).
Enjoy your weekend,
William