On May 18th, the FERC issued the 2023 Summer Energy Market and Electric Reliability Assessment, the report that provides the agency’s outlook for energy markets and electric reliability during the period from June 2023 to September 2023. The 2023 Summer Assessment is jointly prepared by the FERC’s Office of Energy Policy and Innovation’s Division of Energy Market Assessments and the Office of Electric Reliability’s Division of Engineering and Logistics.
The report includes four main sections that do the following:
- outline the findings of the Summer Assessment
- summarize the weather outlook for summer 2023
- address energy market fundamentals, primarily electric market and natural gas supply and demand expectations, including expected North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) regional resource adequacy details
- focus on unique issues nationwide with special attention given to the potential implications of pipeline outages, drought, hydroelectric power, and wildfires on western United States energy markets
After the report was completed, the staff made the following determinations:
- above-average temperatures are expected during summer 2023
- per the NERC, certain regions will have sufficient generating resources to meet expected summer demand, and some regions may require operating mitigations under challenging summer conditions
- the ERCOT, MISO, New England, SERC-Central, SPP, and WECC-CAMX, WECC-NW, WECC-SW regions may face a higher potential for tight supply and reliability issues during extreme conditions
- resource additions outpaced retirements, and there was rapid growth in storage capacity
- natural gas prices are projected to be lower during summer 2023 compared to the previous summer, with high levels of natural gas production and storage
- the electric industry will face supply chain, economic, and security concerns
For more detailed information, see the Summer Assessment in its entirety on ferc.gov.
Source:
2023 Summer Energy Market and Electric Reliability Assessment - A Staff Report to the Commission (ferc.gov)
