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LCG Publishes 2024 Annual Outlook for Texas Electricity Market (ERCOT)

LCG, October 10, 2023 – LCG Consulting (LCG) has released its annual outlook of the ERCOT wholesale electricity market for 2024, based on the most likely weather, market, transmission, and generator conditions.

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LCG Publishes 2024 Annual Outlook for Texas Electricity Market (ERCOT)

LCG, October 10, 2023 – LCG Consulting (LCG) has released its annual outlook of the ERCOT wholesale electricity market for 2024, based on the most likely weather, market, transmission, and generator conditions.

Read more

Industry News

Power Producers Offer Low Prices in Cal Auction

LCG, Jan. 25, 2001Thirty-nine bidders offered long-term power to California at an average price of 6.9 cents per kilowatt-hour in a 27-hour auction that ended at noon yesterday. The average price was more than a cent lower than the 8 cents some experts said it would cost to generate power with today's high natural gas prices.

"This is good news," Gov. Gray Davis told a news conference where he announced the initial results. "All of us are very pleased with the preliminary results."

The $69 per megawatt-hour average was still higher that the $55 per megawatt-hour price the state was hoping for and which had been branded as unrealistic by power producers and others. But Davis seemed pleased, saying the average price "means we are on the right track."

The auction was conducted by the California Department of Water Resources, which aims to purchase power and resell it at cost to the state's two largest electric utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Edison Co., which have been impoverished by the state's deregulation scheme which forced them to purchase power on the volatile spot market at prices many times higher than what they were allowed to charge their customers.

State officials declined to say how much power was offered or for how long. "The governor's office is reviewing the bids and then we will post the information when the review is completed," a spokesman said.

Reliant Energy Inc. said it had submitted six bids to provide up to 3,500 megawatts of firm capacity to the state, as well as up to 500 megawatts of "peaking" power which would be called upon only during periods of highest demand. But it said its bid for the 3,500 megawatts didn't conform to the water department's request for proposals.

Reliant said it would sell power on a 10-year contract for 1.6 cents per kilowatt-hour, plus the cost of natural gas to run the plants. For a 5-year contract, the price would be 2 cents. Under those contracts, it would be up to the Department of Water resources to buy the gas and resell it to Reliant, the company said.

Duke Energy Corp. said its generation subsidiary had "submitted credible bids in the process outlined by DWR."

Davis said he hoped the California legislature would authorize acceptance of the best bids within a week. That seven-day delay for evaluation was a weakness of the auction, Reliant said, because natural gas prices could change in that week.

Another restriction Reliant found onerous was a requirement that power offered must come from existing power plants, preventing bidders from including lower cost power that will become available from new generation facilities coming on line after this year.

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