Electricity Demand in Texas to drive up NGas prices

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dan_s
Posts: 36115
Joined: Fri Apr 23, 2010 8:22 am

Electricity Demand in Texas to drive up NGas prices

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Per EIA 10-3-2024
"In the United States, electricity consumption is growing fastest in Texas, where the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) manages 90% of the load on the state’s power grid. One of the main sources of growing demand for power is large-scale computing facilities such as data centers and cryptocurrency mining operations, although their future demands are uncertain. In our latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), we expect electricity demand from customers identified by ERCOT as large flexible load (LFL) will total 54 billion kilowatthours (kWh) in 2025, up almost 60% from expected demand in 2024. This expected demand from LFL customers would represent about 10% of total forecast electricity consumption on the ERCOT grid next year."

Read more: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=63344
Dan Steffens
Energy Prospectus Group
dan_s
Posts: 36115
Joined: Fri Apr 23, 2010 8:22 am

Re: Electricity Demand in Texas to drive up NGas prices

Post by dan_s »

EIA:
The largest source of electricity generation in Texas is natural gas, accounting for 45% of that region’s generation in 2023. We assume that existing and planned generating capacity is the same across the three scenarios, and our different assumptions about future electricity demand have the most effect on natural gas generation. In reality, the electric power sector could respond to the expected level of future demand by expanding the capacity available from other sources of generation.

In our September STEO, we forecast that annual natural gas-fired generation in ERCOT will fall by 5% between 2024 and 2025 to an annual total of 198 billion kWh in response to increased generation from renewable energy sources, particularly solar. Our scenario with stronger growth in large-load demand results in 8% more natural gas-fired generation in 2025 than the baseline forecast, at 213 billion kWh. Our low-growth scenario forecasts 12% less natural gas-fired generation than the baseline.

The fastest-growing source of new electric generating capacity in the United States is solar power, with growth concentrated in Texas. Our base case STEO forecasts that solar generation in ERCOT by the electric power sector will grow by 54% in 2025 to 67 billion kWh. Solar power is generally dispatched as generation whenever it’s available because it does not have operating costs like fossil-fuel generators. It can also be curtailed to avoid grid congestion or if electricity demand is low at a particular time. In 2023, about 3% of solar output in ERCOT was curtailed. In our high-growth scenario, we forecast 2% more solar generation than in the base case in 2025 because less output would need to be curtailed.

The other major source of power generation that could change under different assumptions about electricity demand trends would be coal, which accounted for 14% of ERCOT generation in 2023. Like natural gas, coal has more flexible generation patterns than renewables, and so changes in demand are more likely to raise or lower coal-fired generation. In our low-growth scenario, we forecast 5% less ERCOT coal-fired generation in 2025 than the STEO base case forecast of 62 billion kWh and 12% more in the high-growth scenario.
Dan Steffens
Energy Prospectus Group
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