Good afternoon,
The latter-half of the next two weeks will bring warmer than normal temps to California, while the rest of the West gets a warm anomaly for the full two weeks. The Northwest looks especially warm through the next ten days.
NP and Mid-C should get some measurable precip over the next week though things dry out late next week.
SP-PV showed prices at $22 and $17 today, respectively. This continues the trend of congestion from last week.
AECO is still under a dollar at $0.90 but is making a slow climb up as the week-on-week difference sits at $0.64. Socal-Citygate climbed a dollar since the weekend, and Socal-Border jumped $0.22.
Crude is looking less volatile today as price has just $0.50 in variance over the last 24 hours. Natural Gas took a relatively sharp drop this morning after dropping three cents over the course of 45 minutes.
PV gas demand fell 35 MMCF overnight but remains up 34 MMCF week-on-week. Mid-C demand has seen demand fall 136 MMCF since Monday and sits nearly 400 MMCF lower month-on-month.
Seattle shows its highs hovering around normal for the foreseeable future as just a handful of days break 70 degrees over the next three weeks. Portland is slightly warmer, but still nothing in the 80s.
Different story once you break over the Cascades as all of Eastern Washington and Oregon should see 80’s consistently following the weekend.
Demand increased 120 MW day-on-day yesterday though the hourly peak fell 930 MW. Off-peak demand (hourly-low) increased 720 MW day-on-day however.
Demand increased a modest 38 MW day-on-day yesterday, though peak hourly demand rose 116 MW. Demand finished 730 MW lower compared to the same day last week.
Sacramento is projecting a high of 90 tomorrow, ten degrees above normal, and should stay north of 80 through the next three weeks, if the forecast holds true. San Jose is projecting roughly ten degrees cooler with much of next week in the 70’s.
SP demand rose 303 MW yesterday, as off-peak hourly demand jumped 530 MW, while peak hourly demand increased a more modest 130 MW.
Burbank is projecting highs in the 80’s leading into the weekend before a return to the 70’s for much of next week. San Diego shows a comfortable forecast in the mid 70’s for the foreseeable future.
A high of just 99 is in store for Phoenix today, but triple digits loom on the horizon through the weekend with a peak of 104 on Sunday. Vegas will get a taste of triple digits on Sunday as well with a high of 101.
Average daily demand increased 300 MW yesterday, with peak hourly demand rising 400 MW higher day-on-day at 12,718 MW.
No change in the Nuke status as all plants report 100%.
SP gas noms reached their lowest point in over a year with just 312,483 as of today. MC gas noms sunk to 157,889 MCF today after leaping to 271,424 yesterday.
SP solar topped out with its highest hour of the week yesterday, reaching 6,705 MW, a day-on-day increase of just 3 MW. Wind jumped 1,200 MW, adding to heavy solar for a healthy gain in renewables.
Hydro
Thunderstorms could bring relatively heavy rain to Eastern Washington and especially Western Montana.
Tahoe will be wet more days than not over the next 10 days, though most fall under a tenth of an inch.
Clark Fork, Spokane, and the Wenatchee rivers are all marking new 10-year highs in CFS, though the former two have begun to slow down. The Salmon River began to increase CFS yesterday and sits well above normal.
With the Clark Fork rising slightly over the weekend, the river cemented its flows as the second-highest of the decade and a chance to reach 2011’s levels.
Grand Coulee slowed its fill over the weekend at 1,232 ft while all other charted reservoirs continue to rapidly fill.
The Salmon and Clark Fork rivers still have plenty of fuel left to increase their strong runoffs, while the Lower Columbia looks about spent.
Washington stations are now consistently falling into the 110% range, though Montana continues to hold onto the 125%+ range.
STP’s latest update called for another increase to May, but the 10-Day looks to be in disagreement as today falls more than 400 aMW short of STP. The difference becomes less apparent as you move toward the end of the forecast, but STP remains consistently higher.
Transmission
BPA-COI shows an extended cut to TTC from the 21st-25th. This comes in 600 MW lower than what was shown last week.
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.
APT suggests a buy with a strong sentiment as the market is at a near-low (contract low was marked on the 11th but looks to have stabled).
Margin was maximized on the 8th at $1.45.
Every trade has a PID (product ID) that can be called within the APT History table linked above, the one depicted is PID 170. Hindsight is 20/20, but this at least gives you an idea of how often the recommendation has been correct.
Have a wonderful day,
William