Sometimes, no news is good news. Figure 1 shows how calendar year wholesale electricity has traded for 2021 through 2024 in the eastern part of PJM over the last two years. And while this chart seems to show a significant amount of volatility, consider the scale of the y-axis when assessing market movements.

The coronavirus has not only significantly reduced electricity usage and peak demand across the NYISO and PJM regions, it has also dramatically changed how retail electricity suppliers approach fixed price electricity offers to clients. In order for suppliers to generate fixed price offers, they first gather and review the previous 12 months of historic usage data, including the volume of electricity consumed (MWhs) and the peak demand (MWs).

It is late August, which means hurricane season is in full swing and our team is closely monitoring the weather in the Gulf of Mexico this week. Hurricane Marco dissipated Monday night as strong upper-level winds stymied its development. Hurricane Laura, however, is a different story. As of 2:00 PM CST on Wednesday, August 26, Laura is bearing down on east Texas and Louisiana and is currently forecasted to come ashore Wednesday night/Thursday morning as a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds over 140 mph. While it appears the Houston metro area will, for the most part, dodge this bullet, thunderstorms and 20+ mph winds will likely pass through the region over the next 24 hours. Right now, the greater threat is for residents in east Texas as the storm moves north along the Sabine River into heavily wooded areas. The current trajectory puts folks in the CenterPoint, TNMP, and Oncor service territories right in the path of this major storm, which has the potential to cause widespread, sustained power outages if trees and power lines are damaged. We’re writing to provide resources for those in the path of Hurricane Laura if there are power outages.

Today (8/25) and Thursday (8/27) temperatures are expected to exceed 90° throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. There is a risk that a new Coincident Peak (CP) is set sometime this week. To do this, the electricity demand in PJM will need to exceed 141,865 MWs. Forecasters expect that today’s load will peak at 143,832 MWs by 5:00 PM. And on Thursday afternoon, the system-wide electric load could set the new peak demand day for 2020.

ACTUALIZACIONES DEL MERCADO

• "CEMDA y Greenpeace obtienen suspensión definitiva contra política energética" quedando sin efecto, a partir del 23 de junio, el acuerdo del CENACE emitido el 29 de abril y la política de confiabilidad de la SENER emitida el 15 de mayo.
• "Gobernadores de siete estados emprenderán acciones legales contra acuerdo de CENACE", acordaron tomar acciones legales para evitar que las medidas los afecten

One final ERCOT 4CP update for the week (and probably for the month as well).

Each day this week, a new Coincident Peak (CP) for the month of August was established! This speaks to the strength of this heat wave and how its increasing intensity throughout the week. Without a lot of rain, there has been nothing to moderate the heat over the last few days, and it’s not over yet.

The high temperature in DFW is 106° today, and the heat index in Houston (which also accounts for the humidity) will approach a lovely 110° this afternoon. Many energy managers and load forecasters alike are worn out but today is yet another high-risk day for setting a new August CP. Fridays are rare 4CP days, but today is one of those tricky situations where the CP for the month may be set if enough energy managers elect not to curtail their electric load. This heat wave is locked in place and it will not budge until Sunday or Monday when a weak front moves through North Texas. One of our forecasting services assigns an 81% probability of setting the August CP this afternoon.

Update:

Last week, we reported that there was significant damage to one of AEP’s 138 kV transmission lines in the wake of Hurricane Hanna. The damage to this transmission line significantly increased nodal congestion charges across ERCOT’s South Load Zone. This week, AEP repaired this transmission line. The blue colors in Figure 1 below show that nodal congestion costs in the Valley have significantly decreased since last week. This is good news, especially given the extreme demands placed on the grid from triple digit temperatures this week.

The heat is definitely on in Texas this week. Yesterday set a new Coincident Peak (CP) for the month of August at 72,200 MW. It is highly likely that we will break that record this afternoon, as load has already surpassed 72,900 MW. ERCOT is forecasting today’s peak demand to be 74,900 MW as shown in Figure 1. This would be a new all-time high for ERCOT. Even though today will likely set the CP for August, Thursday and Friday’s temperature forecast has risen 2 degrees since the beginning of the week. On both days, temperatures are expected to exceed 100 degrees and a new CP could be set on either day.

Calling the August Coincident Peak (CP) this week is like trying to predict whether or not we’ll have any college football this year 😟

Indeed, we set a new monthly peak yesterday at 71,600 MW, but today’s load is forecast to exceed that at 73,068 MW. We haven’t seen data yet on how much load was curtailed yesterday chasing the CP but, if history is any guide, it was probably several hundred megawatts – not enough to make up the 1,200 MW difference between yesterday’s peak and today’s forecasted peak.

The current electric load in ERCOT is exceeding what was initially forecast. The current system demand (green line), today’s forecast (blue line), and yesterday’s forecast (red line) are shown in Figure 1. There is a high risk that today’s system load will set the Coincident Peak (CP) for August.