Negative pricing, and other, thoughts

A new post at the Energy Institute at Hass blog, Is the Duck Sinking?, discusses the growing appearance of negative pricing in California:

What do the negative prices tell us? At a fundamental level, they tell us that we have too much of a good and suppliers need to pay people to take it off their hands. Right now, California has too much renewable electricity. Emphasizing this point, a recent briefing from the California Independent System Operator [CAISO] noted that renewable “curtailments” were at record levels in March 2017, amounting to over 80 GWh, which is more than a typical day’s worth of solar production that month.

Is there anything to do about the negative prices? Negative prices certainly highlight the value of storage, where the basic idea is to buy low and sell high. Buying when prices are negative is especially lucrative…

Another solution is to expose more retail consumers to wholesale prices, or find other ways to encourage customers to respond to real-time prices. Economists have bemoaned the disconnect between wholesale and retail pricing for years…

If Catherine Wolfram’s post represents a significant concern for curtailments and negative pricing, it’s worth noting the situation in Ontario with Ontario’s system operator, the IESO.

It’s worth noting both because CAISO is noting the curtailment, and negative pricing, and it is acting on it.

This graphic, from the CAISO presentation noted above, shows monthly curtailment in their system:

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Premier Wynne’s Easter basket full of rotten eggs

I am lucky to have Parker Gallant to push data summaries to – it is saving me a lot of writing lately!
One thing I’ll add: last Wednesday the Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP) hit its 3rd highest level ever ($1711.03/MWh, or $1.71/kWh). The records may be altered as the IESO often reviews, and sometimes reduces, these price events – this one may explain their recent inability to produce daily reports.

The Ontario Energy Board has a Market Surveillance Panel which investigates price spikes above $200/MWh.
With a nuclear reactor shut down during the weekend of surplus still offline, hour 22 yesterday saw the HOEP spike to $281.25.

Despite April having plenty of supply, and very low demand, last night’s was the 5th $200+/MWh hour of the month, which is a record for April since market opening.

The inability to produce reports may not be the system operator’s most significant challenge.

Parker Gallant Energy Perspectives

Count the eggs! $50 million plus, lost in just 3 days!

The nice weather on Easter weekend in Ontario disguised the fact that April 14^th, 15^th and 16^th were really bad days for electricity customers.

Scott Luft’s daily reports detailed the bad news, even before the Independent Electricity System Operator or IESO got out their daily summary for April 12^th.   Some of the information in Scott’s reports are estimates, but they have always proven to be on the conservative side. These three reports paint a disturbing picture of what’s going on, and how badly the Ontario government is mismanaging the electricity file.

Here are a few of the events that our Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault and Premier Wynne should find embarrassing. They also confirm what many of us have been telling them for several years.

First, Thursday April 13^th saw a disclosure from…

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Ontario’s perceived electricity cost inflation

Why are Ontarians upset by electricity prices?

The other day I read a paper* that referenced 1997’s, “Direction for Change: Charting a Course for Competitive Electricity and Jobs in Ontario.” Skimming the document that moved the province towards the current assortment of public, private and toxic entities, I came across the following graphic within a section titled, “Ontario Hydro’s Unsatisfactory Business Record.”

I thought, presumably as most do when seeing a graphic such as this, I should reproduce this work, and extend it to the present time. Not being overly ambitious, I simply use Consumer Price Index data (from CANSIM Table 326-0020), so my graphics will omit data from industrial entities; not being without curiousity I also grabbed data for average annual residential electricity prices (from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) site).

A little math to reset the base years that will equal 100% and:

It’s not been a good 3 decades for Ontario electricity consumers.