Electric rate venting

[ScotL]

Not many factories will be able to continue operating today in the northeast. The electric rates will be over $800/MWh this evening - and that doesn't include transmission, delivery, or demand charges. When making pellets, that translates to over $155 per ton just for the price of power. This is the worst I've ever seen it.

Below are the day ahead prices for Maine.
Date Hour Price
01/23/2014 01 230.06
01/23/2014 02 215.39
01/23/2014 03 208.39
01/23/2014 04 209.91
01/23/2014 05 221.74
01/23/2014 06 254.91
01/23/2014 07 365.41
01/23/2014 08 493.57
01/23/2014 09 493.04
01/23/2014 10 412.94
01/23/2014 11 435.47
01/23/2014 12 356.29
01/23/2014 13 335.99
01/23/2014 14 311.23
01/23/2014 15 300.22
01/23/2014 16 320.97
01/23/2014 17 477.62
01/23/2014 18 817.7
01/23/2014 19 812.02
01/23/2014 20 742.85
01/23/2014 21 525.0
01/23/2014 22 346.96
01/23/2014 23 280.29
01/23/2014 24 228.27
Data source: ISO New England

I'm not posting this to cast blame, that will just get this thread locked.
I can see a shortage of pellets coming if everyone has to shut down. Many plants were shutting down when the power was hitting $300/MWh. Nobody can afford to operate at $800/MWh. That's the same as a $100/month home electric bill jumping to $2000/month. The 24 hour average is a little better, bringing the homeowner's $100/month bill to $1000/month but it's still not good. Hopefully, household users won't see this drastic increase since the rates we pay at home don't change by the hour. But, I also can't see the transmission companies, like CMP here, taking a loss.

 

[Bioburner]

Some larger stores and manufactures have gas turbines for use during peak electric consumption and get a reduced rate. Now with record high gas prices their playing with a double ended knife, getting stuck anyway they go.

 

[MarkF48]

The prices you've shown are hourly prices and depending on the conditions in the system prices will fluctuate. If a cheap generation source (coal plant) is offline for any give reason ISO then has to make up the loss buy purchasing power elsewhere on the grid which may be more expensive. Likewise during this cold snap they need to purchase more power from sources that may be more expensive. The $800/MWh prices occurred at roughly 6-7 pm in the evening when everyone is coming home and the load peaks, so ISO was likely grabbing generation from where ever they could, even the more expensive sources. The whole operation of purchasing power is quite dynamic and it sort of all averages out in the end.

 

[moey]

3rd shift maybe. Used to work in a factory with a powerhouse we used to sell back on really hot days.

 

[Bioburner]

Monticello nuclear power plant down for repair to cooling exchanger. Guess the off peak power is going to be off for today.

 

[ScotL]

The highest rates are always around the 6pm hour. Year 'round. Normally it's an increase from $25/MWh to $40 or $50/MWh. Not $400 to $820.

Those are Day-Ahead prices, for today. They are set the day before based on estimations of grid load. The other option is to be in the Real-Time market which is usually cheaper, and I expect today it would be much cheaper since the demand will be lower than predicted with everyone shutting down if they possibly can. Some have no choice and have to keep running (like a hospital), but they tend to be on a fixed rate and pay a little more all year so spikes don't affect them. But, that means fixed rates will be increasing too. No broker will want to take a loss. But with real-time you have to keep a vast sum of money in an account that the ISO has access to - like a BlackRock account. And I do mean VAST SUM. It's like an anti-Enron thing. You are required to keep enough in an account to pay for a few months of your future bills based on your usage trend and the current rates. That way they can't get stiffed on the bill if you go out of business and stop paying.

With your own NEPOOL account, you can switch back and forth between day-ahead and real-time. We used to do that here until last winter when the prices skyrocketed - to about 1/2 what they are now. Then we went to a broker with an adder. We get the day-ahead rate with their adder and they have to keep the large account funded.

The ISO has had to purchase power from oil burners. I'm told that it would be even higher than this if they hadn't implemented the "winter reliability" program. Last summer they bought 80 million gallons of oil, which we are all paying for with an extra fee, and basically gave it to the oil generators. That's reduced the cost of generating power with oil, but it's hard to see it. It's quite possible that the 80 million gallons just ran out. I haven't asked.