Energy Market Update 🔌

Weekly Power Outlet US - 2024 - Week 29

Mark Perman - Director, Energy Solutions, Justin Siemens - Specialist Consultant, Energy Services

Jul 26, 2024 — 4 min read

Photo by Elvis Bekmanis / Unsplash

Prices, MISO Queue, Trip'n On a Nuke

Energy Market Update Week 29, brought to you by Acumen.

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a computer screen with a red line on it — Photo by m. / Unsplash

As the heat vacated the Eastern and Midwest, so too did electricity prices pullback this week. After averaging above $100/MW for on peak a few days in PJM last week, prices have retreated to typical summer prices we have seen over the last couple of years.

Natural gas prices continue to be a ho hum story at best as front month contracts continue to hover around $2/MMBtu. Storage numbers showed a 22 Bcf build vs estimates of 18 Bcf for the week. The year started with storage substantially above the highest point the last five years but has been slowly working its way down. At this point storage is still 16% higher than the last five years, but it has at least closed to within the highest point of that time period. The chart below is really what the market is looking at, especially as some of the LNG terminals are still not fully back online. Production over 100 Bcf is still the key number according to traders.

MISO, like seemingly ever RTO, has been struggling with the interconnection queue as new generation projects are being planned. Last year MISO tried to put a cap on their queue with FERC telling them it was basically too complicated with too many caps and possible reliability issues with not enough new generation. This week MISO held its Interconnection Process Working Group meeting and revealed a new plan. While details need to be ironed out, the headline announcement was a straightforward 50% annual cap on peak load demand. While that sets a number, where and how you end up in the queue have to be addressed and passed along to FERC. Hopefully details to follow.

city skyline with lights turned on during night time — Photo by Nicolas HIPPERT / Unsplash

This week a nuclear generation station in ERCOT tripped offline. We usually don't hear about these as the RTO/ISOs do a great job of handling any issues that come up. Grid Status wrote an excellent blog detailing what this may look like from the ISO regarding congestion and generation to pick up the slack. Below is a link to their excellent piece and worth a quick look.

Regular readers know of our affinity for baseball. Every so often we need to throw in a baseball reference or story to the WPO, and given we are approaching the dog days of summer; we thought today might be a good day. This week Dylan Cease hurled MLB's 324th no hitter in history. Our Trip'n on a Nuke headline reminded us of the 174th no hitter thrown in MLB history. June 12, 1970, the very much underappreciated Doc Ellis threw a 2-0 no hitter for the Pirates over the Padres. In doing so, Doc walked eight batters and hit another which makes his no-no unique. To add to the story, baseball lore includes the possibility (the source Doc himself) Doc pitched the game under the influence of a drug choice of the time. There have been numerous stories written, and even some documentaries about the game and are great reads which we highly recommend. Some of the stories include words from Doc when asked about his wildness and movement on the ball that day. It's said Doc commented something along the lines of, 'there was more than one target, so I just aimed at the middle one.'. When people say baseball is boring, maybe they are referring to baseball now compared to the early 70s. Play Ball!!