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Oklo and Siemens Energy Sign Agreement to Accelerate Power Conversion System for New SMR in Idaho

LCG, November 19, 2025--Oklo Inc. and Siemens Energy announced today that the parties have signed a binding contract for the design and delivery of the power conversion system for Oklo’s Aurora-INL (Idaho National Laboratory) nuclear small modular reactor (SMR). The agreement authorizes Siemens Energy to begin engineering and design work to expedite procurement of long-lead components and to initiate the manufacturing process for the power conversion system. Oklo’s expertise in advanced fission technology will be combined with Siemens Energy’s extensive industry experience with steam turbine and generator systems, with the ultimate goal of generating carbon-free, reliable electricity.

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NERC's New Winter Reliability Assessment Raises Concerns for Elevated Risk of Insufficient Supplies to Meet Demand in Extreme Operating Conditions

LCG, November 19, 2025--NERC yesterday released its 2025–2026 Winter Reliability Assessment (WRA), which concludes "much of North America is again at an elevated risk of having insufficient energy supplies to meet demand in extreme operating conditions." The WRA does state that resources are adequate for normal winter peak demand, but extended, wide-area cold snaps will be challenging.

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Industry News

CA ISO to Implement Damage Control as Electricity Price Caps Expire

LCG, October 29, 2002-The California Independent System Operator (ISO), responsible for transmission reliability in the state, is preparing to apply its new market design when the electricity price cap expires tomorrow.

California's wholesale electricity price cap, currently set at $91.87 per megawatt-hour, was instituted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in June of 2001 to curb spikes in electricity prices. FERC has neglected to extend the price caps beyond October 30, and the California ISO took this into account when creating its new market design proposal.

The ISO will use a three-test bid evaluation system in order to determine whether or not an offered wholesale price is reasonable. Prices determined to be unreasonably high will be lowered to a rate determined by an "independent third party." Also, California generators will be forced, under FERC's rules, to offer all available capacity to the market if it is needed. Out-of-state suppliers will also be forced to provide available capacity to other control areas in the west as needed.

Bid evaluation will be conducted by the Automatic Mitigation Procedure (AMP), which will determine whether or not a bid is consistent with recent bid history by computer. AMP is only used if the predicted Market Clearing Price is greater than $91.87. If the bid is significantly greater than the projected, unit-specific price and the bid will increase the Market Clearing Price by more than 200 percent or $50, the bid fails and will be lowered to the unit-specific reference price. More detail on the market rules can be found from the ISO's website: www.caiso.com.

Current wholesale electricity prices are well below last summer's and have remained around $30 to $40 per megawatt-hour.

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