The brutal cold that blanketed the central and southern U.S. in the week of Feb. 14 triggered skyrocketing wholesale power prices in the Electric Reliability Council Of Texas Inc. and Southwest Power Pool, leaving regional monthly averages significantly elevated versus the year-ago period.
The price of next-day on-peak power for February was 6,334.4% higher year over year, at an average of $1,800.98/MWh at ERCOT, and up 3,143.7% over the same period, at an index at $676.81/MWh at SPP.
At their highest, on-peak spot power prices approached $8,800/MWh on Feb. 17 at the ERCOT North and ERCOT South hubs. The same offering topped $3,000/MWh on Feb. 18 at SPP North and SPP South.
Data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show there were 86 to 183 more customer-weighted electric home heating degree days across the central U.S. regions during the week of Feb. 14-Feb. 20 versus the year-ago period.
ERCOT and SPP were among the grid operators that implemented power outages to manage demand amid the bitter cold. According to a U.S. Department of Energy situation report, a total of 4.9 million electric customers were without power the morning of Feb. 16, mostly in Texas.
For the full month of February, ERCOT load peaked at 69,222 MW, or 23.4% higher than in the year-ago period.
And it wasn't just those two markets that saw wholesale power price increases in February. Other organized markets in the U.S. all saw average on-peak day-ahead prices at least double that of February 2020.
Underlying gas prices at hubs serving ERCOT and SPP similarly exhibited significant gains. Spot gas prices jumped 1,124.0% year over year to $20.088/MMBtu for the Texas grid operator and surged even more in SPP, up 2,905.1% to $46.303/MMBtu. Gas prices in other regions at least doubled as well.
In ERCOT, implied heat rates, or the efficiency rates at which the market cost of power equals the cost of burning fuel to produce electricity, climbed 425.7% year over year for gas-fired generators and surged upwards of 6,000% for coal-fired generators. In SPP, implied heat rates rose 7.9% on the year for gas-fired generators but soared close to 3,000% for coal-fired generators.
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