Last week, a powder keg of congestion in MISO seemingly exploded with the following number of unique constraints posting on each day of the week 6/10 – 6/14: 20 on Monday, 25 on Tuesday, 40 on Wednesday, 28 on Thursday, and 27 on Friday. Wednesday’s congestion pinnacle was particularly interesting due to the fact that year-to-date peak demand was established at 73.7 GW in HE 16 which only served to exacerbate the effect of the day’s constraints. Uncharacteristic weakness from baseload units in southern/western Indiana brought significant bullish congestion along the Cumberland-Bush line as power tried to move south. Further west, a strong generation stack in and around St. Louis caused a movement of flows eastward and brought additional bullishness at a Turkey Hill Transformer, Marion-Renshaw, and McCracken-McCracken Tap. The latter congestion continues to be a problem even on weaker load days. It is also worth noting that the last two Wednesdays saw the strongest pricing of each week with Wednesday 6/5 settling at $48.28 and Wednesday 6/12 settling at $62.53 (despite a peak load difference between these days of ~14 GW).
Will the trend continue and another strong Wednesday materialize this week? Based purely on the load profile, it does not appear likely. However, just when days in MISO appear to be better committed (when cleared demand outpaces the Genscape peak load forecast), the trend reverses and another 3-4 days of solid under-commitment ensues. YTD peaks have now been set in successive weeks with peak demand coming in strong yesterday at 74.3 GW in HE 15. Is a new YTD peak on the horizon for next week?
The MISO team looks at all the important fundamental price drivers of the day including weather, demand, generation, transmission outages, and fuel prices in generating its analysis and insights. Genscape clients have access to market-specific analyses and price forecasts through Genscape’s PowerIQ service and can use them to make informed trading or operations decisions on a daily basis. Genscape’s analysts also use real-time power flow and power plant output data from Genscape’s new TransmissionRT platform, which is available to customers as well. To request a free trial of any of Genscape’s Power Market Services, visit: http://info.genscape.com/power-services