|
News
|
LCG, October 10, 2023 – LCG Consulting (LCG) has released its annual outlook of the ERCOT wholesale electricity market for 2024, based on the most likely weather, market, transmission, and generator conditions.
Read more
|
|
LCG, October 10, 2023 – LCG Consulting (LCG) has released its annual outlook of the ERCOT wholesale electricity market for 2024, based on the most likely weather, market, transmission, and generator conditions.
Read more
|
|
|
Industry News
California Capsule: Blackouts Possible Today, Tomorrow
LCG, June 18, 2001It was hot in California over the weekend, and the heat is expected to continue for another day or two at least. Expecting the state to continue to swelter, the California Independent System Operator yesterday issued its first long-term warnings for possible rolling blackouts.Cal-ISO was acting under a new policy to provide warnings of up to 48 hours when blackouts are a possibility. Unless the ISO can find sufficient power to make up an expected shortfall, rolling blackouts are a possibility both today and tomorrow.Peak demand on both days is expected to occur at around 4:00 p.m., with outages most likely to occur between noon and 8:00 p.m., the ISO said.Temperatures in the Central Valley are expected to hit 100 today and tomorrow, from Sacramento to Bakersfield. It could be even hotter in Riverside and the desert areas around Palm Springs, according to the national Weather Service. North of Sacramento, temperatures are expected to be in the 90s.So far this year, there have been six days of rolling blackouts affecting about 3 million customers, mostly in Northern California. State officials credit residential and business customers for keeping demand for power low by cutting use by 11 percent since last year, but much of that was due to unexpectedly benign weather.The weather won't remain benign all summer, and summer officially begins on Thursday. The state is just getting warmed up.Blackout Maps to go on Internet As part of the plan to provide advance notification of possible rolling outages, the state's utilities have been ordered to release maps detailing outage block boundaries. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has resisted the move, saying the information could be used by malefactors to further evil ends.But Friday, the company said it would comply with a state order that it, along with other electric distribution utilities, post maps showing possible outages on the Internet. "What this allows customers to do is find out what outage block the mall is in, or the bank," said PG&E spokesman John Nelson. "While there is value in having this information available to customers, someone with ill intent still could use this information," he added.PG&E said it was concerned not only for the public safety but with its potential liability if, for example, a robbery occurred and the crime could be traced back to the utility's release of information that gave the robber information about where to find disabled security systems or darkened stores.State official discounted the utility's fears. Dallas Jones, director of the state Office of Emergency Services, said representatives of fire and police departments had been convened and asked if they had objections to the program. None were forthcoming, he said.Cal-ISO said it expects lots of false alarms, as it warns of blackouts that do not occur. It is not crying wolf, the ISO insisted. Just issuing electrical warnings tends to encourage state residents to use less electricity and help avert blackouts, according to grid managers.The outage maps will be posted on the Websites of the individual utilities. Also, the ISO's Web site at www.caiso.com will include more detailed information about possible blackouts.State Power Contracts Vary WidelyOf the 38 long-term contracts signed by the California Department of Water Resources with independent power producers, unveiled in part last Friday, almost no two are alike, with differences in terms, conditions, duration, price and size being the rule rather than the exception.One generator was even promised protection from a potential windfall profits tax, before such a levy was even on the state legislature's agenda. That power producer knew how lawmakers think.The contracts commit the state to spend $43 billion for about two years' worth of power, spread out over ten years. The average price for power under the contracts is $70 per megawatt-hour, a cost seized upon by critics of the deals as being a lot more that the current spot market price for electricity.Defenders of the deals point out that the price is a small fraction of some recent spot market prices, which ranged as high as $1,900 per megawatt-hour and were paid by the water agency for short-term power.Republican Assembly leader Dave Cox of Fair Oaks said in a statement that Gov. Davis has "saddled this state with high rates and an uncompetitive economic climate for years to come."Mirant Corp., the power producer that considers the state's business environment so "hostile" that it shelved plans for a 530 megawatt power plant even though the facility had been approved by state regulators, was the savvy company that protected itself against windfall profits taxes.Mirant, which contracted to sell the state 500 megawatts six days a week, 15 hours a day, through 2002 at $148.65 per megawatt-hour, also insisted on and got a clause containing assurance that the state considers the price "just and reasonable," which means federal regulators won't be able to say the prices aren't just that. The contracts are not a sure thing, either. About 70 percent of the power promised under them is to be produced in plants that have not yet begun commercial operation and at least 40 percent of the contracts requires that the state have sold its $13.4 billion in power supply bonds by the end of this month.Those bonds won't be sold by July 1, but one of the contractors, Calpine Corp., said it wouldn't be a "deal breaker." Calpine spokesman Bill Highlander said "It's really an issue of credit-worthiness. If the date passes without some sort of decision, we'd look at it on a month-to-month basis."
|
|
|
|
UPLAN-NPM
The Locational Marginal Price Model (LMP) Network Power Model
|
|
|
UPLAN-ACE
Day Ahead and Real Time Market Simulation
|
|
|
UPLAN-G
The Gas Procurement and Competitive Analysis System
|
|
|
PLATO
Database of Plants, Loads, Assets, Transmission...
|
|
|
|
|
