The Road To New England In An ERA Of Global Warming -- January 30, 2021

Link here.

The graphics:

• New Englanders burning a lot of coal to stay warm --
  
• coal: 5%
  
• spot price of electricity spiked over $210 / MWh -- on a Saturday!
  
• seems to have flat-lined at $120 / MWh -- wow; hope folks don't have to charge their EVs today;
• it appears all fuel sources are maxed out; if more is needed, NE starts burning oil, sourced from overseas (previously posted)
  

Natural gas is only able to meet 50% of demand. 

This note was from a reader back on December 19, 2021. Because I was so far behind I did not have a chance to post this note.

I am posting it now. The numbers will be different now than they were in December but the analysis and explanation remains valid. I am posting it to help me understand the ISO NE charts.

The far right graphic showing LMP 'spot' pricing (~$100) also offers the option to see tomorrow's Day Ahead pricing (tab atop graphic, left corner).

The Day Ahead pricing routinely depictes - by far - the actual amount of electricity for which the producers get paid and at this (Day Ahead) price point.

The idea is that the ISO folks 'guesstimate' the following day's needs, and have ongoing open offers through which generators bid to provide the juice.

Lowest offers  - divided into 5 minute increments - are locked into providing that power at that price.

This can be seen in the very first, left side chart "System Load Graph."

The Green line is the 'Cleared' power, handled through the Day Ahead pricing/power need estimates. (Tomorrow's - Sunday's - Cleared Demand is <17,000 Megawatts at this time of day, as is shown on the LMP map, Day Ahead option).

The Orange line in the graph is the actual consumption in real time.

The 'Spot pricing' to which we constantly refer, (technically called Local Marginal Pricing - LMP) is applied to the difference between Cleared and Actual Demand, which is graphically  depicted as the 'space' between the Green and Orange lines.

Regardless of tomorrow's spot pricing, the Boston folks will be paying over $150/Mwh - wholesale -  for most of their electricity Sunday afternoon.