Electricity
What does a warm day look like?
What does a warm day look like? Here are several ways of looking at one particularly warm day – June 21, 2012. The blue line on the graph below shows instantaneous electricity demand in PJM (see note 1). Electricity demand ebbed to 88,367 megawatts at 4:25 AM and then began to rise as temperatures in…
Read MoreAvalon Energy Services Completes New Energy Supply Contracts on Behalf of Clarion Partners
Avalon Energy Services recently completed an electricity procurement process for five properties in Washington, DC owned by Clarion Partners, LLC. Under the new supply contracts, the five buildings will pay 27% less, in aggregate, than what they currently pay under existing contracts. Avalon Energy Services’ press release related to this was picked up by a…
Read MoreEnergy Prices Always Go Up (continued)
As discussed on this blog, there is a common perception that energy prices have been, and continue to be, on a one way path upwards. In previous posts we focused on natural gas and showed that rather than rising, natural gas prices have, in fact, fallen dramatically, over both the short run and the long…
Read MoreCape Wind
It was recently reported that a power purchase agreement between National Grid and Cape Wind was approved by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. National Grid is committed to purchasing half of the output of the project at a starting price of 18.7 cents per kilowatt-hour. This price will then escalate 3.5% per year for 15…
Read MoreBest Friends? – Natural Gas and Electricity Prices
We have looked at historical and forward natural gas prices. How have electricity prices been behaving? The graph above shows the monthly average of electricity prices at PJM West (a trading hub where electric generation is concentrated) spanning the 131 month period of time of January 2001 through November 2011. Like natural gas, electricity prices…
Read MoreTrade Association Buying Groups – Who Benefits?
Do businesses benefit by purchasing energy through trade association buying groups? In many cases “no.” How can that be? First, some background. The term “load profile” refers to the variation of an electricity user’s electrical load versus time. Load profiles vary by customer categories (residential, commercial and industrial) and by individual customer within those categories.…
Read MoreFixed Price versus Variable Price Energy Supply Contracts
When purchasing energy, there is a price/risk continuum between fixed price contracts and variable price contracts. Fixed price contracts allow you to minimize your exposure to price risk by transferring this risk to a supplier. With a variable price contract, you are accepting the risk associated with changes in the market price of electricity. This…
Read MoreConstellation Electric Offer (continued)
Both of our last two blog entries have generated a great deal of interest. Jay Hancock of the Baltimore Sun picked up on our write-up on Constellation Electric’s offer to customers in Pepco’s territory. Below is a link to his article: http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/hancock/blog/2010/08/avalon_energy_constellation_of.html You can scroll down to our original article or access it by going…
Read MorePECO – Life After the Rate Caps
Electricity markets were deregulated in Pennsylvania over ten years ago. At that time, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission implemented two measures. They allowed electric utilities to recover their “stranded costs” or the cost of investments they had made that they, the utilities, argued would no longer be of value in a deregulated environment. These costs…
Read MoreConstellation Electric Offer
A number of people in Pepco’s service territory have asked about Constellation Electric’s (Constellation) fixed price electricity offer. In the commercial world, most customers view the likelihood that energy prices will go up as much greater than the likelihood that energy prices will fall further. I think this makes sense. Energy prices are currently low,…
Read More