Brian Bartholomew

Not quite, more that electrification, distributed gen, energy efficiency, and everything else together nets out to flat peak demand

Forecast PJM peak load growth hinges entirely on the credibility of projected large loads, mostly data centers.

Without large load adjustments, PJM's peak summer demand forecast is flat through the end of the decade.

PJM's data center load growth is concentrated in a handful of zones.

Dominion, AEP, and PPL account for over 80% of large load requests to 2030.

PJM utilities requested *52GW* of large load additions to 2030, 38GW of which are included in the preliminary 2025 forecast.

17GW of large loads counted for 2030 are new additions since last year.

PJM now projects 110% higher peak load growth through the 2020s--an additional 17GW by 2030 compared to last year's forecast.

2025 preliminary forecast vs 2024:
+ 2.7GW in 2026
+ 7.5GW in 2028
+ 16.6GW in 2030

Boom! PJM now forecasts more than 30GW of summer peak load growth by the end of the decade.

Summer peak demand:
+ 6.7GW by 2026
+ 17.7GW by 2028
+ 31.7GW by 2030

Working on some stuff related to the first one of those :) happy to discuss

Extreme storage offers typically reflect some combination of already empty or the need to preserve charge for AS or later energy obligations. Correlated battery offers mostly reflect correlated underlying opportunity costs, just as similar gas offers reflect similar gas fuel costs.

Concern around high battery offers came mostly from failure to understand opportunity costs of limited charge (if I would run out of charge at cap later, cap is my opportunity cost) and that ERCOT batteries have to manage charge almost entirely through energy bids.

whereas a greater proportion of ERCOT batteries are still providing 'standby' ancillary service capacity and/or responding to more stochastic ancillary service signals (like frequency regulation).

CAISO and ERCOT currently have very different rules governing how storage assets bid and operate. However, the difference in how the physical dispatch looks here is not CAISO doing it 'better', it's just down to a greater proportion of CAISO batteries following more regular energy price shapes...

Hey Joe! Haven't launched that publicly yet but I've left REV and am going to be doing some independent consulting / modeling / analysis. First projects are kicking off this week and I'll be busy with them for a bit, but let me know if you ever think of anything that would be fun to tackle together!

California batteries are getting paid to charge at negative midday power prices

An afternoon of free electricity in Texas, and negative power prices across the west!

Some great Black Friday deals on California midday power

PJM, ISONE, SPP, ERCOT

A $1bn+ Sunday in the Texas electricity market

A $1bn+ Saturday in the Texas electricity market

Highest demand hours closer to mid-80GWs, but yes! Prices in this chart exceed >$2bn market value.

More extreme power prices, potential emergency grid conditions today in Texas

tinyurl.com/mr36un72

ERCOT has issued a call for conservation today and emergency conditions are expected later this evening.

Tomorrow's day-ahead power prices are even higher 👀

More ERCOT fireworks, with $4,000/MWh+ day-ahead prices and potential emergency conditions later today.

themeritorder.substack.com/p/ercot-set-...