Summer’s Last Gasp- Start of Duck Season
The last week of September began with unusually hot weather and wrapped up with near record Wind Numbers over the weekend as wind and solar power were peaking during periods of low energy demand. The Wind Numbers over the period are illustrated below.
September Heat Wave-
Monday’s high pressure led to a complete absence of Wind Power and excessive heat, leading to high seasonal air conditioning load. As a result, we saw afternoon spikes in energy prices up to $80 or more per MWh, as shown below.
Weekend Relief-
Wind Numbers picked up early Friday morning as high pressure moved out and temperatures cooled. The energy supply was exceptionally clean all day Sunday as system-wide Wind Power generation remained above 2 GW while Solar Power plants were cranking up simultaneously. As solar began falling off from it’s daily peak production of approximately 8 GW around 5 pm, Wind Power peaked at approximately 4 GW, then slowly dropped to about 2.5 GW by the early morning hours Monday. During the daytime hours, marginal energy costs ranged from $16 to $20 per MWh, rising moderately higher with peaker plant operation starting around 6 pm.
Still a Peaker Problem-
Comparing Wind Numbers from Monday and the following Sunday, a strong correlation can be observed between the Wind Number and real time pricing. The Wind Number is defined as the ratio of Wind Power over power from thermal power plants (times 100), so this should be expected. Total system-wide net electric-power demand (demand less solar and wind) remained remarkably stable through the middle of the day on Sunday, then spiked more than 10 GW in the late afternoon. It would be helpful if consumers used less power during these afternoon hours, and there are a range of technologies that provide consumers with the power to control when they use electric power. Take a look at our earlier Blog posts to learn some these technologies that can be used to increase your consumption of cleaner energy. Using Cleaner Energy Sabreez.
