With the recent heat in Texas, you may have noticed pockets of congestion which result in large price spikes, especially along the coast.
But is the heat the only cause for the congestion? Are there other factors at play? To make better forecasts and confident trades, we need to get a comprehensive understanding of the causes of congestion.
To do so, let’s break down the Blessing-Pavlov constraint with our near real-time generation and congestion monitoring tool, MUSE.
The image below shows the MUSE constraint breakdown of Blessing-Pavlov flo SSTPESP8 over the last 15 days. The top chart displays the constraint flows (green line) and binding hours for RT and DA (red and purple shading, respectively).
First, we used MUSE to look at the impact of any transmission outages. One thing that jumps out quickly is an outage that reduced flows over the weekend. Otherwise there doesn’t appear to be a large impact from transmission outages.
Next, we looked at the impact by fuel type at various aggregations. Looking at the zonal breakdown, we can see that south wind was the top impact at the fuel/zone level. Also, there is the negative or relieving impact from coast weather zone coal. Why is this important? News came out early this week of a fire at a Houston-area coal plant, which led to the unit being taken offline.
Finally, we looked at the load impact on this constraint. Immediately, it is apparent that the coast weather zone load plays an important role in the Blessing congestion.
In just a few minutes, we’re able to see multiple drivers for the Blessing-Pavlov constraint with a quick click through MUSE.
Do you have other constraints you would like to analyze? Want to see how MUSE could help you make faster, more confident decisions? Let us help you be the first to know exactly why new constraints bind. Get started today
