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A battery energy storage project in California is set to be the world’s largest in terms of generation capacity when the facility is fully energized later in September. McCarthy Building Companies’ Renewable Energy & Storage group, based in Phoenix, Arizona, on Sept. 1 said the company had recently completed construction of LS Power’s 250-MW Gateway […]

Late last week, to manage a potential large-scale power outage driven by triple-digit temperatures, the California Independent Service Operator (CAISO) called on utilities to implement rolling outages across the California grid. The shutdown of three natural gas power plants and a significant decline in available wind power were cited as the primary reasons behind the […]

An energy imbalance market (EIM) is a voluntary market that provides a sub-hourly economic dispatch of participating resources for balancing supply and demand every five minutes. One such market is the Western

The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) on April 16 said weekday morning reductions in power consumption have averaged as much as 18% below typical levels, with the most dramatic drops noted in New York City as businesses remain closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. NYISO, in an updated analysis of estimated coronavirus demand impacts released […]

The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), one of the nation’s nine regional transmission organizations (RTOs) that operate the power grid, now has some of its staff living at two of its control  centers in suburban Albany, New York. The move comes as other RTOs and utilities consider having staff shelter-in-place at their respective operations […]

The Edison Electric Institute (EEI), whose membership includes all investor-owned U.S. power companies, has told its members to prepare contingency plans for their operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Several U.S. grid operators already have announced measures designed to keep employees as safe as possible, while maintaining the reliability of the nation’s power supply. The […]

Low asset utilization is an increasing financial challenge for both conventional and renewable assets, which are sometimes curtailed due to over-generation at various times of day. Integrating large-scale

State-of-the-art automation systems are common at power plants these days. Still, many plants start up units in a very manual way. When startups were rare, the implications were minimal, but as units cycle

The California Independent System Operator’s Energy Imbalance Market (EIM) is a real-time energy market, the first of its kind in the western U.S. EIM’s advanced market systems automatically find low-cost

OAKLAND, Calif. (August 7, 2018)—California can retire at least 28 of its natural gas plants because they are no longer needed to meet the state’s electricity needs nor its carbon emissions reduction goals, according to an analysis released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The study analyzed the operations of all 89 natural gas plants […]

California and Texas—two regions where summer reliability concerns were forecast earlier this year—are suffering extreme temperatures and are scrambling to relieve stress on the grid. The California Independent System Operator (CAISO)—the grid operator that serves about 80% of California—on July 24 and 25 issued statewide Flex Alerts, calling for voluntary electricity conservation during peak afternoon […]

The duck curve is named for its resemblance to a duck, with its peaks and valleys highlighting the effect solar production has on the power demanded from thermal generators and hydropower resources throughout

Higher-than-average temperatures forecast for much of the U.S. this summer won’t affect reliability in most regions, though concerns remain for Texas and Southern California, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Presenting the “Summer 2018 Energy Market and Reliability Assessment,” on May 17,  FERC staff said that most entities that are part of the […]

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) has approved a request from Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) to provide a mixture of energy storage, energy efficiency, and system-wide upgrades to ensure reliable electricity in the Oakland, California, area, after the retirement of an aging Dynegy jet fuel-powered plant. PG&E received CAISO approval for its Oakland […]

Three 55-MW oil-fired units at Dynegy’s Oakland plant in renewables-heavy California will be needed through 2018 to ensure reliability in a region served by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), the grid entity has deemed. CAISO’s board of governors on September 19 extended a “reliability must-run” (RMR) contract for the three Oakland units. An RMR […]

California’s excess of solar power challenges the statewide independent system operator’s ability to balance its system without curtailing low-carbon supplies and ramping up natural gas generation. It’s

The U.S. market for electricity is trifurcated. More than half the country is served by competitive generators bidding against each other in wholesale markets. Almost half is served by conventional state-regulated, vertically integrated utilities controlling generation and transmission. The rest, a much smaller portion, consists of government-owned and customer-owned utilities, some of which are generators […]

The owner of a merchant 1,022-MW combined cycle natural gas–fired power plant in California has filed for bankruptcy protection, citing regulatory policies and market forces that have depressed revenues. La Paloma Generating Co. on December 6 filed for U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy, blaming a debt of $524 million that it racked up even though its four-unit […]

Panelists debating the pros and cons of a regionalized western power grid seemed to agree that the development of such a system is inevitable, but they disagreed on how fast the evolution should occur. The panel discussion took place during the California Independent System Operator (ISO) Stakeholder Symposium held on September 7 in Sacramento. At […]

In a joint report issued April 5, a group of California agencies and utilities said that if the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility north of Los Angeles cannot be returned to service after a major leak this past winter, repeated gas curtailments could occur this summer, leading to significant loss of generating capacity in Southern […]

Calpine Corp. will idle a 578-MW natural gas–fired combined cycle (CCGT) power plant in northern California for likely the remainder of the year. The Houston-headquartered company told POWER on January 15 that it will put the 2001-built Sutter Energy Center in Yuba City in “cold layup.” That means that while will the plant will not […]

Integrating California Independent System Operator’s (CAISO’s) and PacifiCorp’s networks—the two largest high-voltage transmission grids in the West—could yield billions of dollars in shared cost reductions within the first 20 years alone through efficiencies, a new study says.  The report commissioned by PacifiCorp stems from a memorandum of understanding signed by the independent system operator (ISO) […]

In presentations to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the nation’s regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs) on Sept. 17 outlined measures they are taking to prevent issues if faced with extreme weather this winter.  The measures are to prevent widespread generation outages as occurred during the Jan. 6–7, 2014, polar vortex. […]

No one can accuse the officials who oversee California’s energy market of lacking ambition. Fresh on the heels of Gov. Jerry Brown’s January promise to raise the state’s renewable generation target from 33% in 2020 to 50% in 2030, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) in April announced that it and Oregon utility and Berkshire […]