Welcome to Grid Brief! Today is our weekly snapshot of generation in America’s power markets.

What’s Keeping the Lights On?

Here’s a look at power generation nation-wide.

As we can see, at the time of writing, the EIA has a funky looking information gap between the 22nd and the 26th for some regions. We’ll manage the best we can. I have confined the snapshots below to a window that stretches from the 16th to the 21st where necessary.

As always, here’s a map of America’s power markets to orient you as we move through what’s going down.

ISO-New England

Natural gas and nuclear were the top generators in ISO-NE with wind competing with hydro for third place.

New York-ISO

Natural gas kept the Empire State running with nuclear and hydro neck and neck for second place. Wind lumped upwards on the 19th.

 PJM

Natural gas, nuclear, and coal were the star players in America’s largest power market.

MISO

You’ll notice a different date range for our snapshot of the Midcontinent Independent System Operator—unlike the previous snapshots, it’s up to date. Regardless, natural gas and coal were the two top dogs in this sprawling power market. Wind crept up over nuclear a few times, but fission held third place for most of the week.

ERCOT

ERCOT, like MISO, is up to date. God bless Texas. As usual, natural gas had a productive week in the Lone Star state. It was also quite windy until the week’s end. Coal and solar duked it out for third place.

SPP

The Southwest Power Pool had an outstanding week for wind. Most regions simply cannot harness this much wind power for geographical reasons; it’s simply windier out there. But, as you’ll see, coal and natural gas leap in when whenever the wind drops off.

CAISO

This is almost the Platonic form of a California generation graph. We have steep swan curves of solar in the background as natural gas plays a steady reliability role throughout the week. There’s a lot of chaos around third place—wind, hydro, and nuclear.

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Conversation Starters

• US consumers are likely to spend more on heat this winter. “Most U.S. consumers can expect to pay more to heat their homes this winter than last year due to surging fuel costs and colder weather forecasts, but households burning natural gas should see lower prices, according to a report on Tuesday. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA), representing the state directors of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), said ‘prices for home heating this coming winter will remain at near record levels,’"

  reports Reuters. “NEADA said an expected 7.8% decline in the cost of gas heating to $726 this winter from $787 last year would reduce this year's average household heating expenditures by about 1% from last year. That is because about 46%, or 60 million, of the nation's roughly 130 million households burn gas to heat their homes, with most of the rest coming from electricity (about 54 million households), propane (about 6 million) and heating oil (about 5 million), according to federal energy data.”

• Russia crude exports drop. “Due to port maintenance works, Russian crude oil exports by sea dipped by around 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 3 million bpd last week and by 100,000 bpd to 3.2 million bpd in the four weeks to September 24,” reports Oilprice.com. “Last week, the oil export terminal at Primorsk on the Baltic Sea stopped shipping cargoes for four days due to maintenance works, and this halt offset recovering export volumes out of the Kozmino port in Russia’s Far East. Kozmino crude export flows rebounded last week after maintenance works had reduced shipments in the prior week.”

• Europe moves to save its ailing wind industry. “The European Union is planning to unveil measures to help its ailing wind sector next month, after supply-chain bottlenecks and higher financing costs have put a brake on projects,” reports Bloomberg. “The package is set to accelerate permitting for wind projects, help ensure stable supplies and improve the existing rules on auctioning, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last week. It’s due on Oct. 24, according to diplomats with knowledge of the matter, and the EU’s executive arm will probably opt for a strategy or weave changes into regulations already being considered by lawmakers rather than present brand new legislation.”

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