Balancing Congestion

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a change in PJM’s (the Mid-Atlantic grid operator) tariff, allowing them to shift what are called “balancing congestion” costs to load serving entities. FERC approved PJM’s tariff revision with an effective date of June 1. Suppliers have indicated that they intend to pass through these charges. Suppliers include a…

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What Does Volatility Look Like?

This article looks at how cold weather led to great volatility in real-time wholesale electricity prices during January 2014 in the PJM Interconnection (PJM). The month of January 2014 was the coldest in decades in the US as a Polar Vortex pushed its way into the Midwest, South, and East. Winter electricity use in the…

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What Does an Extended Cold Spell Look Like?

This is a follow up to our blog posted Monday evening titled “What Does a Cold Day Look Like?” and looks at the impact on real-time wholesale electricity pricing of extended cold weather. We reported that as a result of Winter Storm Hercules barreling through the Mid-West, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast last Thursday and Friday (January…

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What Does a Cold Day Look Like?

In previous blog posts, we have examined how weather and other events affect electricity prices. What Does a Superstorm (Sandy) Look Like? What Does a Derecho Look Like? What Does a Warm Day Look Like? What Does an Earthquake Look Like? We continue this series by looking at how electricity prices in the PJM Interconnection…

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Energy Prices Always Go Up (Part 4)

As discussed several times previously on this blog, there is a common perception that energy prices always go up. We have examined both natural gas prices (read hereand here) and electricity prices (read here). In this post, we look again at electricity prices–specifically, how they behaved in PJM last year. PJM zonal day-ahead load weighted…

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