Strong natural gas prices, load boost NYISO prices in November
Significantly higher New York-area natural gas prices combined with stronger electricity demand to boost New York Independent System Operator power prices in November, stakeholders learned Wednesday.
During Wednesday’s NYISO Business Issues Committee, Rana Mukerji, senior vice president for market structures, presented a monthly market operations report that shows that real-time load-weighted LMPs averaged $25.45/MWh in November, up from $21.81/MWh in October and from $22.47/MWh in November 2015.
At the Transco Zone 6 New York pipeline, the average spot natural gas surged to $2.19/MMBtu in November from $1.18/MMBtu this October, a jump of more than 85%.
This November’s natural gas price was also up about 24% from November 2015’s $1.77/MMBtu, according to Platts price data.
NYISO’s daily load averaged 398 GWh in November, up from 391 GWh this October and 396 GWh in November 2015.
Including ancillary services and uplift, wholesale power prices averaged $28.61/MWh in November, up from $25.12/MWh in October and from $27.64/MWh in November 2015.
Long Island had the highest average real-time LMP, at $29.97/MWh, while New York’s West Zone A had the lowest average LMP, at $21.14/MWh.
The committee also recommended that NYISO’s Management Committee approve changes to federal tariffs reflecting efforts to facilitate the auction of transmission congestion contracts for the “balance of period,” which means the remaining months of a capability period, NYISO spokesman Kenneth Klapp said.
Known in other organized power markets as financial transmission rights, TCCs give the owner “the right to collect or obligation to pay congestion rents associated with a single [megawatt] of transmission between a specified” point of injection and point of withdrawal, according to the NYISO website.
