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News
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LCG, August 14, 2024 – LCG Consulting (LCG) has released its annual outlook of the ERCOT wholesale electricity market for 2025, highlighting the region's rapid transition toward increased reliance on renewable energy resources and battery storage.
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LCG, August 14, 2024 – LCG Consulting (LCG) has released its annual outlook of the ERCOT wholesale electricity market for 2025, highlighting the region's rapid transition toward increased reliance on renewable energy resources and battery storage.
Read more
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Industry News
California Capsule: FERC May Restrain Power Costs
LCG, June 13, 2001The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is considering a number of moves that could restrain, but not cap, wholesale power prices in California and throughout the West. The ideas are being explored in preparation for a meeting Monday which could produce a plan that would be in effect this summer.Among the options being discussed is the possibility of extending FERC's "soft cap" which pegs what can be charged for electricity during declared power emergencies to the generation cost of the least efficient power plant currently selling into the market. That limit would be extended to full time 24 hours a day, seven days a week.Yesterday, House Energy Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin, a Louisiana Republican, wrote to FERC Chairman Curt Hebert urging that the limits be made full time and be extended to cover the entire West.FERC is also considering a requirement that would compel power producers throughout the West to sell power either into their local transmission grids or directly to the California market during power emergencies. Another move would tighten rules on what markups power traders can place on electricity they sell.Vice president Dick Cheney met yesterday with California lawmakers and told them that the White House, while still unalterably opposed to price caps, was just as opposed to price gouging, and would be watching FERC's Monday meeting closely.FERC is likely to do something, but the question is what. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat who is the new chairman of the Senate energy Committee, has told the agency he will move legislation to impose price caps unless the regulators take the lead in mitigating Western power prices.Secrecy over Power Contracts Beginning to LoosenThe secrecy that has surrounded the long-term power contracts between the California Department of Water Resources and independent power producers could be lifted today, according to a letter sent to the generators on Monday by Ray Hart, deputy director of the water agency.In the letter, Hart cites one of several lawsuits brought by news organizations and others to open the contracts to public scrutiny, and says the case will be heard in court today. He warns that the companies should be at the hearing if they continue to object to terms of the contracts being made public. The water agency's objections have evaporated, Hart said.The Los Angeles Times said this morning that it had "obtained" copies of the confidential government records and expressed some concern that the prices called for in the contracts greatly exceed those on the current spot market. The paper isn't quite sure how the electricity markets work.Prices on the wholesale spot market for electricity have been low for a week or so because of an annual phenomenon. Late spring weather is generally mild in California and is almost always accompanied by a surge in hydroelectric generation as the last of the winter snowpack melts, the runoff filling the reservoirs beyond capacity and the extra water producing power.If this were another commodity, like wheat, the excess production would be stored and sold later when demand was higher.Natural gas can be stored and, with gas prices dropping in California, storage facilities are being replenished against future demand. Since the state's thermal power plants are fueled by natural gas, this will provide some protection against higher power prices later in the year.
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UPLAN-NPM
The Locational Marginal Price Model (LMP) Network Power Model
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UPLAN-ACE
Day Ahead and Real Time Market Simulation
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UPLAN-G
The Gas Procurement and Competitive Analysis System
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PLATO
Database of Plants, Loads, Assets, Transmission...
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