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For the week of September 17th – 23rd: While market conditions remain calm in both ISOs, the SmartBidder team is vigorously delivering optimization, forecasting, and interpretability enhancements. Read more about the updates below and reach out to your analyst if you have any questions.
SmartBidder v10.0 is released to production this week. This version contains multiple improvements and new features for our users.
Perfect Foresight is an optional new benchmark for evaluating active strategy performance. Perfect Foresight is a special type of strategy that reflects the theoretical maximum possible revenue for a given node and configurable set of strategy parameters by utilizing real market prices to generate bids after market close.
When enabled, you can find the "Perfect Foresight" strategy underneath "Active Strategy with Overrides" in the strategy selection panel of the Day-Ahead, Real-Time, and Strategy Selection dashboards:
A perfect foresight strategy can be set up for any "premium" license node with the high-level constraints of that node. Please reach out to your analyst to set up a perfect foresight strategy for your node(s). This Perfect Foresight benchmark replaces the prior "BatterySIMM High Backcast" indicator on the Strategy Selection screen. Unlike the BatterySIMM High backcast, users will be able to see the specific bids and dispatch resulting from a “perfect” strategy.
The SOC chart on the Real-Time dashboard now shows an estimate of SOC movement in future hours. This SOC estimate is based on predictions of which bids will clear the market in future hours and updates every time new bids are generated:
A new Summary dashboard will be available this week to include a quick view of key charts across all of your nodes in a given ISO.
Stay tuned for additional updates to v10 next week.
In ERCOT, structural DART spread conditions favoring DA energy during the summer appear to have subsided and operators should feel more comfortable avoiding low-value day-ahead energy in favor of potential real-time volatility. Market conditions this week will closely resemble last week.
In CAISO, rain will blanket the southern part of California on the 18th and upend typical charging conditions as much of the SP15 solar fleet will be at very limited capacity. Expect SmartBidder to adjust day-ahead charging bids to more aggressive levels.
Market conditions will continue adhering to median levels in ERCOT this week as net load barely breaches 60 GW during most peak periods. Wind and solar production will range from moderate to strong levels while gross load peaks will clock in right around 80 GW. High temperatures will be in the low 90s throughout the population centers.
In terms of BESS optimization strategy, the SmartBidder team recommends moderating on day-ahead energy participation (without foregoing it entirely) to preserve optionality for real-time volatility and reign in cycling. Day-ahead energy can be constrained to maximum MWh thresholds on a given day and/or maximum MW levels in specific hours. Day-ahead offers can also be tuned to be more or less aggressive within the opportunity cost framework.
Short-lived real-time energy price spikes made frequent appearances last week in ERCOT. While DART spreads will continue to be highly variable day-to-day this fall, the average level seems to be returning towards neutral rather than the outsized favorability towards day-ahead energy that was featured in July and August. Operators looking to conserve cycles should feel comfortable sitting in the upper deck of the offer stack and aiming to just catch the tops of the real-time energy price spikes.
This week in CAISO, the 16th looks to be the liveliest day, with net load peaking above 38GW. That being said, volatility appears to be on the decline, as net load is projected to consistently decrease through the 21st night of September. Rain projections in the southern part of the state on the 18th will diminish solar output and make for some uncomfortable charging prices. Operators should bid to charge in day-ahead on the 18th, deciding in real-time whether to match those day-ahead commitments or settle on capturing the DART spread. Later in the week, lower temperatures alongside sunny day shave the potential to introduce some negative pricing as we get deeper into September and officially welcome a new season. Operators should continue to favor a day-ahead heavy strategy, while incorporating some charging through reg-down if qualified to do so. Co-located resources should limit reg-down participation in the afternoon hours to ensure enough time to be fully charged if ancillary throughput is less than expected.
As many of our grandmothers would say, CAISO last week was “the pits.” Net load hovering at or below 30 GW provided minimal evening volatility, with day-ahead evening discharge prices being most favorable for a 4-hour storage resource.
The bright spot in otherwise gloomy conditions came at the end of the week. A steady decline in net load brought a few fleeting moments of negative real-time prices on the 14th, along with the strongest energy arbitrage spreads. The following day, the 15th, net load jumped more than 7 GW to over 35 GW, a shift that can be typical amidst the shoulder season months.
Because temperature fluctuations in September directly drive net load conditions and, in turn, energy pricing, leveraging an optimization tool that can both forecast price volatility and capture unexpected swings is more important than ever. This week, SmartBidder released updates to our production environment that enhance price forecasting, allowing for more accurate price predictions and, as a result, stronger model-driven decision making in both the day-ahead and real-time markets.
The information provided in this newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered trading advice. Trading in energy markets carries inherent risks and short and medium-term forecasts are always subject to change and revision.
For the week of September 17th – 23rd: While market conditions remain calm in both ISOs, the SmartBidder team is vigorously delivering optimization, forecasting, and interpretability enhancements. Read more about the updates below and reach out to your analyst if you have any questions.
SmartBidder v10.0 is released to production this week. This version contains multiple improvements and new features for our users.
Perfect Foresight is an optional new benchmark for evaluating active strategy performance. Perfect Foresight is a special type of strategy that reflects the theoretical maximum possible revenue for a given node and configurable set of strategy parameters by utilizing real market prices to generate bids after market close.
When enabled, you can find the "Perfect Foresight" strategy underneath "Active Strategy with Overrides" in the strategy selection panel of the Day-Ahead, Real-Time, and Strategy Selection dashboards:
A perfect foresight strategy can be set up for any "premium" license node with the high-level constraints of that node. Please reach out to your analyst to set up a perfect foresight strategy for your node(s). This Perfect Foresight benchmark replaces the prior "BatterySIMM High Backcast" indicator on the Strategy Selection screen. Unlike the BatterySIMM High backcast, users will be able to see the specific bids and dispatch resulting from a “perfect” strategy.
The SOC chart on the Real-Time dashboard now shows an estimate of SOC movement in future hours. This SOC estimate is based on predictions of which bids will clear the market in future hours and updates every time new bids are generated:
A new Summary dashboard will be available this week to include a quick view of key charts across all of your nodes in a given ISO.
Stay tuned for additional updates to v10 next week.
In ERCOT, structural DART spread conditions favoring DA energy during the summer appear to have subsided and operators should feel more comfortable avoiding low-value day-ahead energy in favor of potential real-time volatility. Market conditions this week will closely resemble last week.
In CAISO, rain will blanket the southern part of California on the 18th and upend typical charging conditions as much of the SP15 solar fleet will be at very limited capacity. Expect SmartBidder to adjust day-ahead charging bids to more aggressive levels.
Market conditions will continue adhering to median levels in ERCOT this week as net load barely breaches 60 GW during most peak periods. Wind and solar production will range from moderate to strong levels while gross load peaks will clock in right around 80 GW. High temperatures will be in the low 90s throughout the population centers.
In terms of BESS optimization strategy, the SmartBidder team recommends moderating on day-ahead energy participation (without foregoing it entirely) to preserve optionality for real-time volatility and reign in cycling. Day-ahead energy can be constrained to maximum MWh thresholds on a given day and/or maximum MW levels in specific hours. Day-ahead offers can also be tuned to be more or less aggressive within the opportunity cost framework.
Short-lived real-time energy price spikes made frequent appearances last week in ERCOT. While DART spreads will continue to be highly variable day-to-day this fall, the average level seems to be returning towards neutral rather than the outsized favorability towards day-ahead energy that was featured in July and August. Operators looking to conserve cycles should feel comfortable sitting in the upper deck of the offer stack and aiming to just catch the tops of the real-time energy price spikes.
This week in CAISO, the 16th looks to be the liveliest day, with net load peaking above 38GW. That being said, volatility appears to be on the decline, as net load is projected to consistently decrease through the 21st night of September. Rain projections in the southern part of the state on the 18th will diminish solar output and make for some uncomfortable charging prices. Operators should bid to charge in day-ahead on the 18th, deciding in real-time whether to match those day-ahead commitments or settle on capturing the DART spread. Later in the week, lower temperatures alongside sunny day shave the potential to introduce some negative pricing as we get deeper into September and officially welcome a new season. Operators should continue to favor a day-ahead heavy strategy, while incorporating some charging through reg-down if qualified to do so. Co-located resources should limit reg-down participation in the afternoon hours to ensure enough time to be fully charged if ancillary throughput is less than expected.
As many of our grandmothers would say, CAISO last week was “the pits.” Net load hovering at or below 30 GW provided minimal evening volatility, with day-ahead evening discharge prices being most favorable for a 4-hour storage resource.
The bright spot in otherwise gloomy conditions came at the end of the week. A steady decline in net load brought a few fleeting moments of negative real-time prices on the 14th, along with the strongest energy arbitrage spreads. The following day, the 15th, net load jumped more than 7 GW to over 35 GW, a shift that can be typical amidst the shoulder season months.
Because temperature fluctuations in September directly drive net load conditions and, in turn, energy pricing, leveraging an optimization tool that can both forecast price volatility and capture unexpected swings is more important than ever. This week, SmartBidder released updates to our production environment that enhance price forecasting, allowing for more accurate price predictions and, as a result, stronger model-driven decision making in both the day-ahead and real-time markets.
The information provided in this newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered trading advice. Trading in energy markets carries inherent risks and short and medium-term forecasts are always subject to change and revision.
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