Executive Summary

This Report covers market performance for December, 2020. The key market performance highlights are presented here:

CAISO area performance:

  • Peak loads for ISO area continued to be below 30,000 MW this month driven by low temperatures.
  • In the integrated forward market (IFM) and real-time market (RTD), PGAE prices were elevated for a few days due to transmission congestion.
  • Congestion rents for interties declined to $4.57 million from $5.18 million in November. Majority of the congestion rents accrued on Malin500 (52 percent) and NOB (31 percent) intertie.
  • In the congestion revenue rights (CRR) market, the balancing account for December had a surplus of approximately $9.30 million, which was allocated to measured demand.
  • The monthly average ancillary service cost to load edged down to $0.83/MWh in December from 0.89/MWh in November. There were 22 real-time scarcity events this month.
  • • The cleared virtual supply moved close to the cleared virtual demand in the first half of this month. The profits from convergence bidding rose to $4.69 million from $3.06 million in November.
  • The bid cost recovery increased to $8.67 million from $6.98 million in November.
  • The real-time energy offset cost rose to $6.34 million from $3.97 million in November. The real-time congestion offset increased to $12.51 million from $6.23 million in November.
  • The volume of exceptional dispatch increased slightly to 87,669 MWh from 84,860 MWh in November. The main reasons for exceptional dispatch were planned transmission outage, other reliability requirement, and reliability assessment. The monthly average of total exceptional dispatch volume as a percentage of load percentage was 0.50 percent, edging down from 0.51 percent in November.

Energy Imbalance market (EIM) performance:

  • In the FMM and RTD, the prices for SCL spiked on December 7 due to import reduction and upward load adjustment.
  • The monthly average prices in FMM for EIM entities (AZPS, BANCSMUD, BCHA, IPCO, NEVP, PACE, PACW, PGE, PSEI, SCL and SRP) were $26.00, $39.68, $28.33, $31.66, $26.78, $26.84, $29.58, $29.27, $28.68, $29.99, and $25.94 respectively.
  • The monthly average prices in RTD for EIM entities (AZPS, BANCSMUD, BCHA, IPCO, NEVP, PACE, PACW, PGE, PSEI, SCL and SRP) were $22.47, $35.91, $28.00, $29.60, $24.36, $24.63, $29.39, $28.68, $27.89, $29.29, and $22.06 respectively.
  • Bid cost recovery, real-time imbalance energy offset, and real-rime congestion offset costs for EIM entities (AZPS, BANCSMUD, BCHA, IPCO, NEVP, PACE, PACW, PGE, PSEI, SCL and SRP) were $1.76 million, -$4.63 million and -$1.90 million respectively.