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What happened? In October 2017, Vistra Energy announced that it would be retiring over 4,000 MW of generation capacity before the summer of 2018. The retirements represented ~5% of ERCOT’s total generation capacity and have significantly reduced the projected reserve margin for the summer 2018 planning period. In the latest Capacity, Demand, and Reserves report […]
Penalty charges for deviating from expected natural gas consumption come primarily from two sources with distinct and separate circumstances. The first way to incur additional charges is to use more (or less) than the contracted and nominated amount of natural gas, which is referred to as a swing tolerance penalty, or just “swing.” Swing charges […]
On January 31, 2017 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued an order accepting PJM’s compliance filing that noted an underfunding in the PJM Financial Transmission Rights (FTR). The funding mechanism will be addressed by allocating balancing congestion charges to real-time load. As a result of FERC’s acceptance of the filing, all Load Serving Entities […]
The New York Department of Public Service (DPS) in August gave final approval for the Clean Energy Standard for the State. This will require the state to generate 50% of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030, as well as pay upstate nuclear power plants up to $956M over the next two years to […]
Hydroelectric production levels in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) dropped significantly in August from both year-ago levels and from the previous month as well below-normal levels of precipitation during the month appeared to impact the availability hydropower supplies in the region. According to data from the US Army Corps of Engineers, total net electricity generation at […]
Starting over a decade ago, the Massachusetts legislature began creating laws that require all suppliers of electricity (including utilities) to obtain a certain percentage of their electricity from renewables. The original legislation, called the Renewable Portfolio Standard or RPS, began in 2003 with all suppliers required to purchase 1% of generation from qualifying renewables. Since […]
On May 12, 2016, the EPA took another set of steps to cut methane emissions from the oil and natural gas industry and stay on track to achieve its goal of cutting methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 40-45% from 2012 levels by 2025. In addition to curbing emissions of methane, the […]
Due to increases in power sector demand for gas, coupled with growing demand from the industrial sector in the region, overall natural gas demand in the Southeastern US is expected to grow by nearly 8 Bcf/d over the next 15 years. All these factors combine to create significant risk of higher natural gas basis prices […]
On April 27, 2016 FERC ruled in favor of groups challenging FirstEnergy’s and AEP’s long term electricity supply agreements. The ruling rescinded the previously granted section 205 waivers, which had allowed the utilities to purchase electricity from their affiliate generators, effectively invalidating the PPAs. Additionally it questioned the non-bypassable RRS rider proposed to fund the […]
On April 19, 2016 the California legislature further amended the proposed expansion of regulations on underground storage of natural gas at the Aliso Canyon facility in Los Angeles County. Although the current draft of the legislation focuses specifically on testing of all wells at Aliso Canyon, it includes a requirement that a complete retirement be […]
