Month: December 2016

Good Morning,

The lights are still on, and prices over the weekend, for the most part, didn’t do a lot. The “B-Team” managed well, it never got that cold in the load centers, though the hinterlands were chilly:

If only you could get five million people to move to Montana, then the weekend would have been interesting. But you can’t,  and the weekend wasn’t that interesting:

Cash was bullish, up $4.00 over last week, but not as much as the BOMs that bought the fact, now they have to sell the reality:

The rest of us will pick over the bones and look for something to chew on, maybe those BOM 29s look tasty? Read on to see if we bite….

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Demand

Starting with loads, how much did they rally versus last week?

Every hub is up, and not insignificantly, 6700 MW in total, so why were prices so unresponsive. Call it a healthy system, one that was brimming full of potential energy. More on that in the Hydro section, let’s see if there are more BOM fireworks in store.

Hub Temperature Forecasts:

The Mid-C leads the retreat into bearish territory by adding six degrees over last week’s outlook; everywhere else is just modestly different.

Mid-C Composite Temp Forecast

The hub is looking at above normal temperatures this week and a fair amount of precip over the same days. Call that bearish.

Sacramento, CA

Northern California remains below normal for most of the month and is drying out, call that bullish.

Burbank, CA

Above normal in LA, hints of cool weather at the end of the month, but too far out to bank on, plus that week is the dead zone for loads; everyone is home watching the Seahawks win another Super Bowl.

Phoenix, AZ

Phoenix is the only city that gets some art; they get a big red box because of the perfect weather they’ll have this week. Get out the clubs and enjoy yourselves, Arizonans and visiting tourists.

In closing the demand recap, let’s take a look at month-to-date degree days:

Impressive in the north, depressive in the south. With temperatures warming everywhere those positive anomalies will slip towards negative territory and those negatives will get more negative. In other words, BOM’s past is as good as BOM will get, weather-wise.

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Generation

The ISO had a few more outages to report over the weekend:

Most of those new outages were in NP; SP was sideways.

Only one gas unit, Etiwanda 3, returned versus Friday, and there were several new units that came off …

Most notably, Metcalf and Desert Star, both big and efficient; now if the gencos would only take off another 10,000 MWs we could get excited. If you like wind, you probably will get excited about Mid-Cs renewable outlook:

This  is ugly, relative to last week, as the low pressure brings wind and rain, which is a good lead into our hydro update….

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Hydro

Last week was dry and demand soared, and the reservoirs were drafted, which is why prices didn’t soar with the soaring demand:

In a week the Northwest (including BC) lost nearly 1000 KAF of storage, not an immaterial amount and one that brightens the Q1-3 outlook for the hub, but doesn’t help BOM since that water is still working its way downstream, all the while the rains are coming and natural river flows will rise.

Mid-C is looking at about 50% more precip than normal, most will come down as snow – good for the resorts, bad for length. Look at SP with its one inch, twice what NP is getting … not something you see every day. And the poor Rockies barely get a trace, not good for your Vail stock.

To draw a strong sentiment with precip, we need to look at where it falls….

And it falls where it counts, the upper Columbia; both Spokane and Kalispel are staring at an inch of precip over the next ten days, both well above normal which will drive water supply up not an insignificant amount, which will render the Q1-3 a shade more bearish, fundamentally.

Only the Great Basin is above normal, as of this morning, but we think the Mid-C is heading that direction. Contrast today’s 89% of normal with where we were the last two years – above and growing. Not to slight the other hubs, but when it comes to hydro there is only one, Mid-C, that matters, so let’s explore those water supply anomalies a bit further….

The Snake has been all over the RFC map but today their forecast is in line with ours, both are at 96% of normal (Jan-Jul). We doubt we see those anomalies go up given that Boise will realize below normal precip, but the forecast won’t crater, either.

The Lower Columbia shows some disagreement between the RFC and Ansergy, not a lot, but some. The RFC pegs it at 98%; we say 100%. Both of us will be growing that number by next Monday, perhaps to 102%.

Interesting that the RFC is over at Coulee, the delta is 5%, RFC over. The standard deviation delta is even wider; the RFC has been all over the proverbial map on this one while Ansergy has remained calm and focused and nailed it. This forecast is going up, perhaps big time, with the positive precip anomalies heading into the Upper Columbia.

While on the topic of the RFC, today is STP Monday and we just have to look at their 10 Day to get a sense of what this afternoon will bring:

Not sure what this afternoon will bring, but that Ten Day is going to bring a boat-load of energy to Bal Week … call that UGLY. It also suggests that today’s forecast is going up; we think it might go up across the 120 days given the precip outlook, though there could be some regulation changes off of last week’s big drafts. Don’t really know, don’t really care, either, since the STP will change many times between now and when delivery takes place.

California rivers are still raging following their big water last week:

Contrast today’s flows with 30 days ago; big changes and those flows are generating more energy, case in point is the Pit River, up almost 50% and still not at hydraulic capacity. Call it bearish.

Before moving to transmission, we want to look at BON and GCL in more detail:

Kind of a boring chart, right? But think about what happened last week – many utes set new load highs or got close, but the discharge barely changed. It is what isn’t in the chart, spikes in flows, that we think is most telling. BPA basically yawned its way through the weekend cold.

Coulee had to draft, but BPA never had to take the project to even close to hydraulic capacity, 25% of its turbines never got wet over the weekend.  Now you, and I, know why prices sucked. More hints of that in the tranny section …

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Tranny Section

Some day we’ll have to just post pictures of real tranny’s, but not today, we need to talk about some changes in how energy flowed over the weekend.

Flows out of ZP didn’t flow, barely any energy moved, yesterday’s average was 2300 MW lower than the period average. Can’t explain it, other than loads and outages in ZP were up, or maybe NP didn’t want the energy because the MidC was jamming an additional 700 MW into the hub:

This rally in exports caught us by surprise; we’d think that with near-record cold the hub would husband its scarce resources rather than export them, and the prices weren’t that high. Just goes to show how robust the supply side was at Mid-C.

Flows into SP on the DC were up 650 aMW versus the weekly average, again falling on Mid-C’s coldest day of the week. Go figure…

Some of that energy came from Canada; Powerex exported 400 aMW more than its weekly average.

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Conclusions

• BOM – this will be the last week for trading, it is just running out of hours.
  • Mid-C
    • 
    • Ugly chart, but now the market is below the forecast render us less bearish, though the fundamentals are ugly, we just don’t see any big moves either way and will buy back our short position and be … FLAT
  • NP
    • 
    • The sell-off continued on Friday but the deltas are now back to the 60-day average, and we’ll keep our length on off of a cool northern Cal forecast and a drying trend.
• Q1
  • Mid-C
    • 
    • The deltas have reversed, now the forecast is over, we were short, now we’ll buy back the short, despite a more bearish water supply outlook, we don’t think you can ignore the loss of one MAF over the last week … LONG
  • Q2
    • Mid-C
      • 
      • Will keep the short position on given the expected bump in water supply, effectively going long the Q1-2 roll…. SHORT

 

 

Good Morning,

Before diving into the WECC’s outlook, let’s get the holiday schedule out of the way:

Dec 22-23 – Holiday

The rest of the days we will be working and posting.

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Markets

ISO SP DA vs HA

A relatively non-eventful week at SP; the deltas between DA and HA  have tightened while the overall peak prices have dropped. A similar story at Pac West:

The panic of a week ago is no more, stable prices reflecting a system flush with capacity to serve loads, though this weekend will be a test as several BAs serve into Design Day demand.

 

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Loads

NP and Mid-C both realized major drops, week on week, in loads, though they both will reverse that trend over the weekend.

 

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Mid-C

Mid-C Composite Temperatures & Precip

Looks scary this weekend, but it’s not that scary, the Westside is not that cold:

Seattle, WA

Maybe drops below 30 on Sat-Sun, but look what happens on Mon, and most of next week …major warm anomalies. Assuming BPA has to draft over the weekend to serve its loads, then all of that weekend water will flow through Mon-Friday turbines … ouch especially coupled with loads falling off a cliff.

And BOM looks vulnerable, even though it has sold hard from its highs, there may be more pain in store:

Given that the weekend prices are excluded from BOM, and that BOM looks fundamentally weak, we’d have no choice but to sell those $35s, especially when we take into account all of that hydro energy that needs to find a home next week.

RFC 10 Day

The feds don’t like BOM, either, they just jacked next week by 800 aMW, a week that doesn’t need jacking, it needs pumping, but there is nothing to base a pumping upon, except maybe transmission flows, they have been weak of late meaning incrementally there is more demand potential via exports.

Both the AC and DC are exporting less than their weekly average, and we doubt that changes that over the weekend. Next week, however, we expect to see an additional 2000 aMW flowing south, that will help support Mid-C prices.

The northern intertie has room to export more into the Mid-C, and given the warming here and there, we wouldn’t be surprised to see BCH be more aggressive sellers next week, not because they like the price, but because they will be longer off of warming.

Gas Noms at the hub have gone nuts for the weekend:

Every turbine but Mint Farm nominated, and we are confident they’ll just pull inadvertently and run. This weekend maybe just a yawner with all those turbines generating.

Speaking of generating, check out next week’s wind forecast:

Warmer weather means low pressure means more precip and windy days, we are seeing another 1000-2000 MW of wind generation next week …ugly, huh?

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NP15

Sacramento, CA

Unlike the Mid-C, the cold falls on business days next week, and for Sacto it is cold, and it stays cold for the rest of the month. Offsetting that exuberance are those 1000-2000 incremental MWs coming down the AC next week. Also offsetting these HDD loads is all the water in the state, at the moment:

Wow, look at the Yuba, flowing nearly 12kcfs right now; contrast that with last year’s paltry 164 CFS. Or take the Tuolumne at 4600 versus last week’s 93 CFS. It rained hard in the Golden State, and now its rivers are flush, and energy output is up. But the state is going dry, again, and it only takes a couple of days for the water to make it to the bay, so we aren’t too concerned for BOM.

Prices, like Mid-C, were beaten down, but we think it’s trading close to value and are entertaining going long the spread.

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SP15

Burrrrbank, CA

Slightly over normal next week but hints of very cold beyond that. Probably too far out to bank on but we’ll be watching. A few more HDDs and some precip and LA could have a white Christmas …hah …won’t happen.

The hub appears fairly priced (BOM) but we’re long the NP, so we’ll pass at an SP position, especially since the holiday is approaching and the illiquid WECC will have even less liquidity. Whatever you put on and leave on you better plan on just taking the index.

That cooling weather will force bigger storage draws, but Socal has plenty of bullets:

They have 40 bcf to play with, assuming the ute would pull down to 2014 levels.  We can’t see them doing that, not given the state of their state’s politics. Until the Aliso injection drama is over, we expect Socal Gas to husband that storage, but point being if there is an emergency, they have the bullets.

Not much news in the outage arena:

SP picked up a net 300 MW of capacity, while NP did about the same.

Desert Star is a new outage, 500 MW of cheap capacity.

But is partially offset by the return of Etiwanda 3.

 

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Palo

Phoenix, AZ

Not much to say, the desert goes from above normal to normal; loads will pop a bit, but nothing like last year.

3000 MWs higher they were last year on the same day, but it will need to get a lot colder than what the current forecast delivers to reach those levels.

It looks like Mesquite is back from its maintenance outage, back with a vengeance by nominating a robust 222,000 mcf for tomorrow. That might help firm things up at Socal Border.

The hub’s head-fake rally has petered out; now it’s trading at value with nowhere to go. We’ll pass on doing anything there.

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Conclusions

• BOM
  • Mid-C – short off the cold falling over the weekend (and thereby excluded from the BOM price) and the wall of water facing next week’s weak outlook.
  • NP – long off of cold weather and the short MidC position
  • SP and PV – flat, why clutter our minds over the holiday?
• Jan
  • Mid-C
    • 
    • We think it is trading at value but if we hate the BOM we can’t really like the Prompt, and since we were short the Q and bought back the Jan we’ll resell it to make it a short Q
• Q1
  • SP
    • 
    • We’re converting the short Q1 Mid-C to a long SP-MC spread. We think the Q is fairly priced but like being hedged over the long holiday, plus we believe now is a great time to go long both the one and two. We are seeing normal precip coupled with cool weather for the rest of Dec in the Mid-C ….that means above normal snow. With the first Flood Control coming in just a few weeks, and a growing water supply outlook, the Q1 Mid-C could come under attack. So we are LONG the spread

 

Good Afternoon,

Here are a few highlights of what’s going on in the west today.

Natural Gas Markets

Nat Gas Summary

All gashubs are again down day-over-day, though none significantly. Stanfield showed the largest decrease ($0.10).

Water Supply

Mid-C Snow Chart

More snow has fallen across Mid-C this week, pushing the early 2017 totals above previous years.  The 2017 snow year trails only 2011 over the past six years, as of December 15th.

US ACE Water Flow

2016 Grand Coulee generation flow continues to pace above 2013 and 2015, though still falls short of 2014.

Demand

Mid-C Loads

Loads are already up 359 MW week-over-week with much colder temperatures on their way through the weekend.  The year-over-year gap increased as well, now 2,590 MW higher than last year.

Temperatures

Spokane Temps

Spokane has the potential to set a new 10-year low on the 17th and 18th.  Forecasts have been readjusted to account for a slightly higher minimum temp beginning on the 19th and 20th.

Weather Actuals

 

If temps in Spokane are able to reach above normal as forecasted early next week, it will represent the first min-temp above normal since December 4th.  Spokane had been above normal for most of the fall until that point.

Mid-C Temps

The Mid-C hub as a whole will have minimum temps far below normal for the next few days, but especially on the 17th (10 degrees below normal).

Hub-Level Temps

Every hub is showing temps below climo.  While Mid-C leads the way with 4.4 degrees below normal, Great Basin, Rockies, and SP15 are all also more than a degree below climo.

NW River Forecast

The difference between the 10-Day River Forecast and the STP forecast looks like it will tighten significantly beginning on the 16th.  Avg MW for the 10-Day Forecast remains largely unchanged from yesterday to today, but is mostly up from earlier this week.

 Outages

ISO Major Unit Outages Chart

465 MW of gas has come offline across the ISO since Dec-14th.  Conversely, 104 MW of wind has returned online furing the same span of time.

Renewables

SP15 Renewable Generation

Solar generation in SP15 should hover close to 4000 MW for the next week.  While there aren’t any days with potential for extreme generation, this is still a moderate increase over last weeks average of around 3500 MW.

Mid-C Renewable Generation

Mid-C may be able to offset some of the pending increase in demand with wind generation, if the forecast holds true. The weekend shows potential for two 400+ MW days.

Transmission

Transmission – MidC to BC

Mid-C has been drawing on BC power for all of the past week, and hit a daily average high of 1247 MW on the 13th.

 

Have a great rest of your week,

William

 

Good Morning,

We thought about Volte Facing on you again, but decided it might make us dizzy, though the cooling weather outlook makes it tempting, and so does the recent selloff in BOMs, though some of that was gas-driven, not all.

Trade Rank – BOM MidC Onpeak

Wow, that is some volatility, but note the tiny deltas between the forecast and the market …tempting to jump back in, but let’s first digest the fundies before we make hasty decisions, then we’ll make hasty decisions.

Gas took a tumble, spot gas:

Two comments:

• Socal traded over PG&E? strange
• Stanfield got smoked, we’d expect that relative reversal to reverse relatively soon

On the subject of gas, recall our hyping the blow-out in the Feb-Mar PG&E Socal spread a few months back? We do:

When we hyped it the spread was $0.34; it settled yesterday at $0.17 … ka-ching.  For the record, we’ll buy it back today.

The ISO HA / DA markets belie the relative mildness of the last couple of days:

The Mid-C virtual hub we created (avg of BPAT, PACW, & PSEI) has flamed out over the last couple of days, at least compared to last week, but we suspect there are still embers and more fireworks are in store of this coming weekend, more on that when we get to Demand.

The HA markets have lagged the DA most of the last three days; the trend which was so friendly (HA over) has now turned into a frenemy and is biting the virtual traders in their arses.

Looks even uglier for PSEI, and we think those HA < DA marks just speak to a healthy Northwest system, it just isn’t that cold right now in the west-side load centers.

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Demand

Let’s get the loads out of the way.

Yawn. One item of note, check out the deltas at PV between this year and last year; gives a decent representation of what will happen if the Southwest gets cold. Does it? Read on ….

Mid-C Composite Temperatures & Precip Outlook

The cold stays even extend another day, and the rest of the BOM is either at normal or slightly below. Call it bullish, but bear in mind we live in a relative industry, so call it what you like, but call it relative to the market price. How is the west side looking?

Oooh lala … 22 for a low in PDX, that’s great, but note which day it falls upon … Sunday, dang. With the B Team at the helm, however, it may make for an interesting weekend voyage, which is why we think those HAs might get spikey while sparky is calling the shots.

Sacto, CA

This station warrants a large rectangular box, almost looks like an inverted refrigerator, which is about how it will feel in the state capital for the rest of the month if you believe our free forecasts. Call it bullish, we are, we haven’t seen the rest of the WECC (RM excluded) chilled while the Mid-C is cold. Just like summer heat, prices blowout when all hubs get tight, they weren’t all tight last week, the SW had warm anomalies. What about LA and PHX?

More refrigerators. Both cities are going to experience some chilly weather for the remainder of the month, per our weather. Now go back to those PV loads and note the 2000 MW rallies last year realized over this year…this forecast suggests something similar could be in store.

How cold has it been?

Nippy in the hinterlands, Kalispell is basking in minus eight, Spokavegas loves its sixes, and further east, Billings couldn’t break into single digits, and that is strange to see Kalispell colder than Billings. But move west, and you see Seattle at thirty and Portland at thirty-two, just not that cold.

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Hydro

We have a few comments, a few reports, to discuss on this subject. For starters, let’s examine the ten-day outlook for precip:

Mid-C and NP are both above normal, though the former is barely while the latter is nearly double. The rest of the hubs are below, but they don’t really count for much in the land of hydro.

Station Forecasts

None are dry, there are no zero’s, but most of the Mid-C precip is westside. This forecast, coupled with the temps, is setting up for some dream ski conditions…if you care. The fact there is any precip, given the very cold, will render some amazing snow.

The NWRFC is upping the energy for this weekend:

But is sticking to its guns for next week. The million dollar question is how high will prices get over the weekend, for that will most likely be the coldest days of WY17. Loads will rally, but so shall generation, case in point is Coulee:

That big plant is running around 120 kcfs through the turbines, but look at the reservoir, it spiked up. Inflows are strong, but the more salient fact in the above plot is how much additional, unused, capacity is at the project. BPA can push nearly 200kcfs through the turbines; it is running, on average, just above half of that. They have the reservoir to run it full-gate, they are not. Just this plant alone could put another 2000 MW of energy into the hub, and if it did generate at max capacity, there would be a wall of water heading at the 14,000 MWs of downstream capacity.  All of which makes us just a little bit squeamish about getting too giddy over BOM Mid-C.

Northwest Rivers

BPA isn’t too worried, they have cut the draft at Lake Pend Oreille – Box Canyon only passed 10kcfs yesterday, last week they were pushing 20k through and a month ago nearly 35kcfs. BPA has bullets that aren’t in the chamber; they aren’t even in the magazine. Also, note the flows coming in from Canada (which is net of the Pend Oreille cuts) … up 12kcfs. One final comment, the cold weather of late has dramatically cut natural river flows, the Mid-Columbia side flow index is at a five-year low.

BC Hydro Rivers

Arrow is up 400% from a month ago which is pushing an additional 30kcfs towards Coulee. Some of this might be BPA drafting, but we think more of it is BCH serving loads.

California Rivers

The recent rains are filling the California rivers; the Yuba is up 300%, so is Cherry Creek and the Consumnes. The region is poised to get another two inches over the next ten days so don’t expect these to abate too fast.

All of which brings us to another important question, one that should be on everyone’s mind if you hold any Mid-C exposure in 2017. What is the water supply situation and what will happen this winter and spring? In a word, it is now normal.

We’ve been avoiding talking about water supply much because 1) RFC’s numbers have been all over the map; 2) was too early to be relevant. But now we are entering the witching hour where anomalies in Dec matter for the final anomaly in Apr. And the anomaly today is just normal, at least that is what the Ansergy anomaly suggests; the RFC is higher at Coulee (102% vs. 98%) and lower at TDA (98% vs. 101%) – RFC, Ansergy – respectively. Both forecasts are consistent; it’s normal.  Though we expect the snow to build over the next ten days and we possibly could be looking at slightly above normal going into the new year, which tees up the initial flood control drafts, and also suggests that GCL may see more drum gate maintenance this spring. Given the above, we are less enamored of the Q1 and Q2, though we are short as of Monday, see no reason to buy it back today, even though reservoirs are getting drafted:

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Generation

Not a lot to say here, and most of that is just bearish. Outages in the ISO have pulled back from last week:

And those reductions are shared equally across both NP and SP.

Returned Units

Nothing earth-shattering in the returned units, aside from the contrast to the new outages:

And note the new is mostly irrelevant … hydro! The nukes are all running, and renewables are too.

Gas Noms

Avista is running its peaker, most of the plants are online, we suspect every plant will be running on Sunday. And, while on the subject of gas noms, let’s look at our Nat Gas Demand Indexes

SP lags 2015 by about 0.6bcf/day, but we think that will change with the cooler outlook.

NP didn’t come close to reaching last year’s levels, but, like SP, they should test those levels sometime in Dec.

The Mid-C breached the highs of last year and may/should set higher highs over the next week. For the record, our Demand indexes are made up of multiple LDC points that have very high correlations to EIA actual demand. Each point was tested and only the ones with R values > 0.80 were used in the index. In other words, our index is an excellent indicator of actual gas demand.

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Transmission

Flows out of ZP continue northbound and yesterday’s were almost identical to the weekly average, all of which just speaks to the above normal weather CA has realized.

The DC saw some action yesterday, as in inaction, cutting 750 aMW of exports to SP (versus the period average). Not sure what is driving that, it wasn’t TTC, that is unchanged. I guess no one liked the price and everyone told the Californias to hug a tree.

Same story on the AC, together with this 1500 aMW less energy that made it into CA yesterday; loads don’t indicate the northwest needed the energy, and the ISO prices weren’t that bad. Really don’t have an answer, maybe one of you do and will share?

BC must be seeing their loads slacken, their exports to Mid-C jumped 250 aMW over the weekly average.  Be interesting to see what they do over the weekend.

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Conclusions

• BOM
  • Mid-C – we were short going out Monday, and we were right, but we aren’t pigs, we were bears, and the phat profits from being a prophet need to be taken and banked. Should we go long? We’d be tempted, but the untapped hydro capacity in the northwest causes trepidation and suggests caution, so all we will do is buy back our shorts and be ………..FLAT
  • NP, PV, SP – take your pick, we are going long all of the above off of a swing too much colder. If Mid-C does rally hard those virtual transmission lines will rally up the other hubs; we already saw that. I think you can be long either HL or LL, we’ll stick with the liquid HL and be long SP and PV.
• Q1 & Out
  • We were short the Mid-C one and two on Monday, we will stay short in the two, buy back our Jan short but leave the Feb-June short.

 

Good Afternoon,

Here are a few highlights of what’s going on in the west today.

Natural Gas Markets

Nat Gas Summary

All gashubs other than SoCal Citygate are down day-over-day.  SoCal Citygate is up $0.02, while Stanfield showed the largest decrease ($0.21).

Water Supply

Mid-C Snow Chart

The past week brought cold weather and a decent amount of precipitation across Mid-C, and the snow chart is reflecting that.  The 2017 snow year trails only 2011 over the past six years, as of December 15th.

Water Supply Summary

Taking a peak at Ansergy’s updated Water Supply Summary report, we can see that the Flathead basin has continued to pace well above the 10-year normal, and even increased 1.9 percentage points from yesterday.  7 of 15 basins are below normal, though two of those sit at more than 98%.

Demand

 

Mid-C Loads

Extreme cold temperatures took a temporary leave of absence over the weekend, and loads decreased in turn.  Loads are down 1,046 MW week-over-week, though with temperatures even colder than last week, demand will increase rapidly.

Temperatures

Seattle Temps

The Seattle minimum temperature forecast has been further decreased by six degrees for the 15th, bringing the day’s minimum temperature to 24 degrees.

As should be expected, the extreme cold weather will also be dry in Seattle.  There isn’t expected to be any precipition in the area until the 17th.

Hub-Level Temps

While NP15 and PV are both expected to see sligtly higher than normal tempertures over the next ten days, Mid-C is forecasted to see an aggregate temperature 6.8 degrees below normal, by far the largest anomly among the hubs.

NW River Forecast

The 10-Day River Forecast is projected higher than the STP forecast for each of the next ten days.  Avg MW for the 10-Day Forecast remains largely unchanged from yesterday to today.

 Outages

ISO Major Unit Outages Chart

Nearly 1700 MW of gas has come back online across the ISO since Dec-9th.  Along with gas, we also saw significant return in Solar over the weekend.  Hydro remains mostly unchanged.

Renewables

SP15 Renewable Generation

Solar generation in SP15 hit a trough on the 10th, and has been slowly ramping up generation ever since.  Today shows potential for over 5000 MW followed by slightly lower totals in the following week.

Mid-C Renewable Generation

The cold front looming onto Mid-C should allow for some wind generation today and tomorrow.  Last week peaked at 2836 MW on the 11th.

 

Have a great week,

William

Good Afternoon,

Anyone else get annoyed with the NWRFC’s water supply forecasts? Do they seem like they are all over the map  at times? Contrast their numbers with ours, take the Clearwater for example:

Dark blue is Ansergy, teal is RFC’s. Ours is updated daily based upon a weighting of the precip and snow anomalies; also the Ansergy’ water supply is what we use in our own internal stream flow forecasts for the current water year. The above is for Jan-Jul, let’s take a look at the Lower Columbia (Jan-Jul):

Somewhat of a similar pattern but clearly the Ansergy forecasts are more stable. Her is the Apr-Sep:

We built this new report (replaces old water supply: Fundamentals / Hydro / Water Supply / Water Supply) because we lacked confidence in the NWRFC’s numbers. That said, it is the RFC’s numbers which will set flood control, not ours (too bad) but we believe that you can use ours to predict theirs. That flood control number, released around Jan 15, is hyper-critical in determining how Feb-March will play out, so being able to call that number well in advance is critical. So is managing your Q1/Q2/Q3 exposure if you set that exposure off of water supply.

Above are the charts, pretty simple and easy to run, what is more interesting, we think, is the summary table.

It is a busy table, let me explain the fields.

• Hub – all of the WECC is included, use the hub to filter out the basins of interest
• Basin – 31 basins reflecting 100% of the US WECC hdyro capacity
• MW – the cumulative downstream capacity – use this for ordering the most important to the top
• HC – one of our hydraulic capacity values; like MW, use it to group by size
• Source – either RFC (River Forecast Center) or ANS (Ansergy); there is no water supply forecast for the non-MidC, so these locations only have our numbers
• Period – there are three periods: Jan-Jul, Apr-Sep, and STP. The first two are self-explanatory, the STP requires a deeper dive, more on that later.
• CHG – this is the change from one week ago (W1) to the most recent (CUR): CUR- W1. Useful for finding the biggest movers.
• Periods – Cur=Current; D1 = yesterday; W1 = one week ago, etc

With a little filtering you can quickly get a nice view of what is happening with water supply:

STP – Water Supply

We filtered on Period = STP and sorted descending on MW, and filtered on the RFC’s STP. The values reflect the % of normal (10 year average) using that week’s STP.  Bear in mind these values reflect the 120 day STP period, they do not correspond to the traditional Jan-Jul/Apr-Sep. For today they would be Dec 12 to Apr 12.

Specific Station – Grand Coulee

In this view we simply filtered on Grand Coulee and we can see all six water supply forecasts. Note too that there is also an ANS STP forecast; this value reflects our pure runoff forecast for the STP period. In Coulee’s example, we are forecasting higher flows than the RFC for the STP period. However, Ansergy uses the STP from days 5-90, then we phase into our own numbers so by day 121 our water forecast is 100% Ansergy.  Each day the runoff is recompiled and the best five years are selected by basin, so on occassion you may see jumps in our numbers as a basin switches to a new water year.

Non-MidC Basins

In this view we selected all hubs except Mid-C, Jan-Jul, and sorted descending on MW. Useful for getting a view of how the rest of the WECC is faring, though note the MW pales in comparison to the northwest, hence our hydro obsession with that hub.

Let us know if you’d like any special reports made, or some private training. And anyone that is a non-customer that would like to be walked through the report drop us a note.

Team Ansergy

Good Afternoon,

The NWRFC published its 120-day  update this afternoon and is solid six on the interesting scale.

Monthly Energy

Energy Scorecard

• Dec – Down 19 aMW – rounding error
• Jan – Up 540 aMW – the first surprise, but given constant bumps in Dec not a total surprise
• Feb – Up 1300 aMW – the second surprise, seems ridiculous given the RFC’s has been walking down its Water Supply number
• Mar – Down 700 aMW – not really a surprise given how silly last week’s March was (over-stated); this just puts a more realistic spin on the month
• Apr – really not enough data to draw a comparison, but for the days given last week vs this week it is off 800 aMW

Before recklessly casting aspersions we should investigate the other reports, then we can more confidently denigrate to our hearts content.

Daily Energy

Big water upfront, no surprise given the big precip anomalies, plus the recent cold weather. However, the forecast seems to separate beginning on Jan 1 and widely deviates once it reaches Feb and that is where we just don’t get where this new-found water is coming from. Also think the cuts at the end of Feb look bizarre; this far out and calling for 1400 aMW positive anomalies (on March 1) then but a few days later calling for a 1000 megawatt negative anomaly. Those kinds of dramatic changes are typically driven by regulation, like flood control, but we are a month away from having any kind of clue as to what the drafts will be.

Year on Year Comparison

Look at the huge delta between 2014 and this year in Dec; this plot compares the same week for each of the years. We think this confirms that Dec and Jan are reasonable, maybe even Feb given that it is less than 2014, but March seems a shade rich, as does the early part of April.

Daily Year on Year

From a historical perspective, the forecast does not seem unreasonable, except for the month of March which seems to imply very large drafts to drive such big flows. Strange that 2014, a much bigger water year (at least as of today) is so much lower than 2016.

Good Morning,

We are turning, yet again, which means we have now done a full circle, we have spun 360 degrees, we are now bears, and we are selling anything that dare showeth a bid. When we are done, our book is net short.  Why? Read on…

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Markets

Let’s start with Friday’s wild ride up

Monthly Changes  – Market and Forecast

BOM Mid-C HL up $8.00, every other hub up, huge rally and good rally if you were long. Even the Qs jumped:

If you sort that table ascending on Market change you don’t get nary a negative, neither do you on the monthly; everything is up. But most telling, to us, are the ever widening deltas between the forecast and the market (CHG F-M) in the monthly table, these are growing so wide we find them unsupportable, given the fundies we are seeing. Tippy toppy, heavy market … but do the fundies support these levels? Before we go there, let’s finish looking at markets, especially the ISO.

ISO DA Week on Week

Down, but not a shocker, it wasn’t that cold over the weekend. The Hour Ahead market is more telling, we think:

Our virtual hubs (averages of outside BAs) shows the volatility the Mid-C realized, but also highlights the lack of volatility over the weekend, the weather warmed and not much happened.

Hour Ahead vs Day Ahead

In this table we compare the hour ahead market to the day ahead and sorted on the DA-HA column, ascending. Massive deltas on hours 18 and 10, with HA over.  The mirror of the above:

Different hours, different BA, but equally large deltas. Interesting, huh? We thought so. Now, on to those fundies we alluded to, several times.

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Demand

First, let’s get loads out of the way, there isn’t much to report, there are no massive, week on week swings (Sunday to Sunday):

Not a lot need be said, the weekend wasn’t cold. Going out, however, on Friday we saw some very cold weather, some OMG cold, but we see that has abated somewhat today (call it BFD cold, if you like):

Mid-C Composite Minimums:

Note the first plot, temperatures, and the huge rally over Friday’s forecast … bearish, relatively speaking when compared to last week’s outlook, still bullish in absolute terms, still cold, still below normal, but not OMG cold, more like BFD cold,  and not BOM Up $8.00 cold, either.

Also note the dearth of wet this  week, but followed by 14 days of precip. We like holding Q1-3 Mid-C length when the outlook is dry, we like to hold it when the market pounds it down to nonsensical levels …we don’t like to hold it in the face of above normal precip nor do we like to hold it after it rallied hard.

But the above is the composite, what about Portland?

The City of Roses barely breaks normal, this is no event, this is normal, everything is normal but the prices.

Sacramento

Hah, sacto is well above normal and is facing two inches of precip, nothing bullish there. The rest of the cities (PHX and BUR) are no better:

Burbank chills out, but not until next week, meanwhile the LA basin is going to get about 15% of its annual precip in a single day. The silver lining in that rain cloud is there will be little or no solar.

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Hydro

The hydro outlook is growing more bullish off of declining reservoir levels and more bearish off of increasing precip outlook, plus improving snow pack.

The hub is now below 14 MAF in storage and is quickly approaching the four year average; recall there was nearly a one maf overhang a few weeks ago, not it is almost gone, and after drafting to serve loads this week it will be gone.

This table reflects the cumulative ten day precip in the current forecast, sorted descending. Not often will you see the Mid-C come in fourth place, clearly the big events are further south, but the hub with 30k mw is still above normal where it was half of normal on Friday. Let’s take a closer look at the stations:

Not a lot leaks over to the east side, just call it normal for the Mid-C stations, though the Sierras wil get pounded. Given the cool weather all of the precip comes down as snow, and the outlook for snow is growing everywhere.

Mid-C Basins

This table is sorted on downstream generating capacity, so the top matters more than the bottom, and that top is quickly approaching normal, in some basins it is now above normal. With above normal snow coming, the hub will slide into at true positive anomaly, we say true because the RFC has been wildly too high for the early part of the water year, but reality is catching up to their numbers.

Other Snow Basins

The rest of the west is below normal, though these impending storms will move every one of those basins up.

Today is STP Monday, let’s take a gander at the 10 Day:

Every day is higher than last week’s STP, which suggests today’s STP should sport higher BOM numbers, but given the RFC’s walking down of its water supply #s:

We think that Jan-Mar could be given haircuts, especially that goofy March number.  Before leaving hydro we wanted to take a look at the northwest rivers, post- cold snap:

The great thing about having so much hdyro capacity is having so much hydro capacity, the bad thing about having so much hydro capacity is having so much hydro capacity, especially after an event has expired. What we mean is look at the large positive changes, week on week, across all the major projects. Up 15k-30k across the board. Granted there is more cold coming, not as cold as it once was, but cold enough to force BPA et al to continue drafting to serve loads. Great, draft away, but there is a lingering residual effect of all this drafting … it takes a week or so to work that marginal/incremental water out of the system. Meaning, the week following the cold can be very bearish as the cold-weather water now crushes the warm-weather markets. We think we’ll see something like that happen next week rendering those $45 boms kind of scary, kind of stupid, kind of “won’t last long”.

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Generation

The ISO, SP in particular, has a lot of outages, a lot more than two weeks ago:

SP has almost 5000 MW more offline today than two weeks ago, while NP is unchanged.

New off line:

Returned units:

More came off than came back, hence the bump. Speaking of bumps, the Mid-C wind outlook is looking longish:

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Transmission

We noted some work on the AC line over the next few days, not that it should matter, the loadings haven’t begun to approach the derated values:

Flows inside ZP have returned to normal:

That just reflects the reality of a healthy system, there was no stress this weekend. The northwest continues to be stingy with its energy:

Though the DC saw exports rally about 500 aMW over its weekly average; the AC still is tight but is loosening, though remains 500-1000 below full.

We saw the Northern intertie flowing right at its weekly average as the load situation up north abated over the weekend.

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Conclusions

• BOM
  • Mid-C
    • 
    • Uhh, yours…we are selling this short
  • Other Hubs
    • 
    • Uhhh, short, short, and shorter
• Q1 and out
  • All length is sold, we are net short at Mid-C in Q1 and Q2, flat beyond

 

Good Morning,

Good Day,

We have added a couple more views, By Hub, to our ISO Price reports. This provides a convenient way to view congestion. You can view three markets:

• Day Ahead (DA)
• Hour Ahead (HA)
• Real-Time (RT)

For seven locations:

• ISO
• SP15
• NP15
• Mid-C (average of BPAT, PACW, and PSEI)
• Palo Verde (AZPS)
• Great Basin (average of NEVP and PACE)
• Rockies (PNM)

Each report provides three aggregation levels:

• Interval – the base level reported by that market; for RT it is every 5 minutes; HA is every 15 minutes; DA is hourly. (last 3 days)
• Hourly – average of all intervals by hour (last 15 days)
• Daily – aggregated into on and off peak (last 90 days)

Pictures say it best, some examples follow:

Hour Ahead, All Hubs, Interval Aggregation

Clearly the Mid-C is rocking and rolling at the moment (why did we sell our BOM on peak?); let’s compare this market to just NP15:

Actually that off-peak we kept on the books did quite well as many of the ticks were north of $100. Just how good? Zoom in and find out:

Comparing locations to the inside-ISO markets can lead to some interesting observations. For example, let’s look at the Day Ahead market by hub for the last couple of days:

Mid-C performed terribly, big congestion into the ISO, at least on the DA market; how about the HA?

Ooops, if your guys sold your length DA they left some pennies on the table, more like C Notes. Note the massive MC to PV congestion over the last several hours; those prices were reversed in the DA market.

All of our ISO Price reports include the imbalance markets, in case you care

MW, Interval, All Hubs

In this example we plotted the energy flows by interval for all hubs; the plot is hard to read, so turn off the hubs you want to exlcude by clicking the legend.

Now we see just the ISO’s net energy flows by five-minute tick. Recall from an earlier product update that you can easily compare DA to HA.

In this example, we are plotting the DA vs HA prices for PACW on an hourly basis.

For the record, these plots look great in a dashboard where you place 4-6 of them, side by side. Let us know if you need some help setting those up.

Team Ansergy