Has anyone else been watching the baseline prices on RRTP program?

[Bob Fairbairn]

In August, September, and now in October the RRTP has risen on average where I am no longer saving money. My last bill I was 13% over. Usage is on par.

I am thinking there is no value to me any longer if this keeps up.

I do not understand why the cost has risen.

RJF

[J Jon Smith]

It seems to be PJM, not just ComEd. It is just a guess, but I am thinking that since natural gas is displacing coal, and gas plants can spin up and down faster, that there is less overgeneration that has to be shed at low rates, like there used to be, due to their need to overestimate demand as a cushion.

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[gregory.f.ward]

I used to be the ComEd manager overseeing power distribution to downtown Chicago.  All the high rises downtown and in the suburbs are heated and cooled by electric heat pumps moving heat and cool energy areas as various sides of the skyscrapers are heated by the sun but others more shaped sides are relatively cool.  Also years ago ComEd build a gigantic refrigeration plant that produces ice in the middle of the loop.  It sends out chilled water to most of the skyscrapers.  The L and subway is completely run by electricity.  Trains r much shorter due to shortage of people riding them.

With Covid most people r working from home reducing the need for office space.  So the need to heat and cool large portions of buildings has also significantly been reduced.  The bottom line is there's a huge glut of electricity driving down demand as human bodies and office lights just aren't adding as much heating and cooling load.

Plus the demand for power to run the trains is way down too.

Greg Ward

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[Bob Fairbairn]

Interesting and logical.  The whole demand cycle has changed.  I bet the cheap light bulbs at Home Depot will fade away.  I wonder how hard they are pushing to get higher rates...

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[ma...@thrum.net]

To the original poster of this question (Bob) : be patient! The price of real-time electricity (PJM LMP) is very highly correlated with the price of "futures for Henry Hub natural gas prices as delivered to utilities" (yes, that precise futures exists, check EIA). For statisticians among you, the R2 is over 92%. In effect, all energy prices are going up and real time electricity pricing along with it. If that stays, ComEd will simply not be able to keep their fixed all-in prices at current levels for long. When that happens your difference for keeping RRTP will be positive again. Besides, if you quit RRTP you lose the capacity pricing based on your own PLC kW measure, and with that any incentive to run around the house in the summer switching things off when PJM usage is high. You'd lose all the fun.

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[rzi...@gmail.com]

Natural gas prices are having an increasingly large impact on electricity prices in the PJM market, but for ComEd's region there were other things at play late last year.  Another very import bit is that one of the Braidwood reactors was down for refueling.  Normally it's done in the lull between cooling and heating season, but Exelon was busy playing chicken with the state of IL over subsidies.It came back online to 100% on 11/8/2021, so that's a significant chuck of the load in the ComEd market.

Some reactors are winding down now for (planned) refueling outages, so that will cause some "bumps" in the ComEd region.