Good morning,
The blue blob of winter weather is centered in Wyoming but it’s stretching across the entirety of the West, especially from the Great Basin north. The following week is less extreme but cooler temps look to linger everywhere outside of Southern California.
The Northwest will be cold but dry this week, while California and the Southwest may see a slightly higher than normal amount of precip. Next week will bring a considerable amount of rain to Northern California and a return of wet weather to the Northwest. Nearly everything east of the Rockies is projecting a normal amount of precip.
SP-PV showed a difference of $31 at their peak and $12 when comparing their low prices yesterday. SP-NP had no difference at their peak price yesterday while SP-Capt Jack had $3.
Crude was essentially flat today following a $0.02 decline, bucking the one-day $1.20 rally from Monday. Gas managed a $0.06 climb but was up as much as $0.12 at its peak yesterday. Futures remain highly elevated.
December Sumas rallied strong yesterday with a $3.61 increase day-on-day, this on the back of a week-long drop in price. Socal City had its own rally of $0.85 as well. January Sumas jumped as well though more modest at $1.50. Citygate stayed flat in January.
Jackson Prairie storage ran positive again yesterday after adding another 42 MCF to storage. That marks the 5th-straight day of injections, though it was off 97 MMCF from Monday.
Sumas spot rose to $11.77, up just over a dollar from Monday but up more than $2.00 week-on-week. Malin fell $0.30 day-on-day and is now more than $0.50 off its high on the 21st.
AECO crashed back below a dollar and settled at $0.42, its lowest price of the month.
Seattle shows no sign of peeking its head into the 50’s any time in the near future as today tops out at 49, but that sets the high watermark. Lows fall well below freezing half way through next week and highs will struggle to reach 40.
Loads were most flat yesterday as peak demand stayed flat through the weekend.
NP peak demand was up just over 100 MW day-on-day but was down 100 MW from its low in comparison. Loads were also mostly down week-on-week.
San Jose is projecting a high of 65 today, five degrees above its 10-year average, but highs well drop off sharply, falling well into the 50’s by the weekend. Daily lows could dip as far as 39 by the 3rd of December.
SP peak demand fell more than 700 MW day-on-day yesterday though off-peak demand rose 500 MW. Loads were off roughly 600 MW week-on-week as well.
Burbank is looking at a high of 69 today, just a degree north of average, but it too will see a considerable drop over the next week as temps fall as low as 40 by the 3rd. If that low temp holds true, it would equate to 10-degrees below normal.
Not to be left out, Phoenix will get its share of cool weather next week as well. Temps drop from a comfortable mid-70s high today and tomorrow to the mid-50’s by next Monday. Overnight temps could dip to 39 by the 4th.
Las Vegas is even colder as we are currently projecting freezing temps for the 3rd and 4th and 30 and 31 degrees, respectively. Temps may fail to reach 50 on each of those days as well.
PV2 remains in refuel mode at 0% while all other plants stay at 100%.
SP gas noms fell to 766,000 MCF, down 100,000 day-on-day and roughly the same difference week-on-week. Mid-C noms ticked up another 20,000 MCF but haven’t varied by more than 80,000 MCF since the 5th of November.
SP-15 solar was peaking at just 4,200 MW on the 22nd but has since been able to generate more than 5,300 as of the 26th. Wind had a heavy presence from the 22nd through the 24th as no hour averaged less than 1,400 MW.
Mid-C wind peaked at 1,900 and 2,300 on the 22nd and 23rd respectively but fell off sharply soon after. Wind managed a small comeback on the 26th with most hours averaging just over 400 MW.
Gas outages are up more than 2,000 MW week-on-week after another 600 MW of outages were tacked on to yesterday’s totals.
Two of the largest contributors to the increased outage counts are highlighted here — CENTRAL LA ROSITA II COMBINED CYCLE and LR2, both at 322 MW.
Hydro
Mica is sitting at 25′ below average though that’s three feet closer to average compared to where it was at the end of October. Arrow is down to 1,424′ and falling and diverting from the trend we see in the average line in the process.
This week brought on considerably more snow in the Rockies in addition to a heavy dumping in the Sierra Nevada. The Cascades remain well below average, however. We’ll see if next week’s cold and wet weather is enough to bring the anomalies closer to 75% at least.
Wanapum and Rocky Beach each added more than half an inch over the past three days. 24 of the 30 tabled stations saw more than an inch of snow depth over the past week, however, while the remaining six were made up primarily of Montana stations.
Priest Rapids saw the most week-on-week build with 1.75″ tacked on. It came at the right time as the station has had a very late start to the snow year, as the chart above illustrates.
Transmission
No week on week changes for either the COI or NOB lines, though each is set to see their TTC drop sharply by 10AM PST today.
Have a wonderful day,
William