PATH News · 2026-09-21

Newslist

No data was available for this section at build time.

First edition — nothing to compare against yet.

Weather across the Westchart

Tomorrow runs cool across the West, Southern California most of all. In the early morning Southern California is the warmest region at a 63.6 mean but 7.1 below normal, with Los Angeles at 62.7 at HE1; Northern California is coolest at 56.6, while Spokane sits at 63.2, 4.3 above normal. Through the morning ramp Southern California holds 63.4, 8.7 below normal, Los Angeles bottoming at 58.8 at HE8, and Washington is coolest at 56.5. Midday Southern California leads at 75.0 against Washington at 65.7, with Sacramento reaching 82.6 at HE16 and Seattle only 56.7 at HE14, 8.6 below normal. Into the evening peak Northern California is warmest at 72.8, Washington coolest at 65.4, and Oregon 6.1 below normal at 67.3. Late evening Southern California holds 65.6, Washington drops to 56.8, and Portland reaches 53.4 at HE24, 8.0 below normal.

Load forecastchart

CAISO carries the only full curve for tomorrow. Load starts the early morning at 24,708 MW in HE1 and bottoms at 22,015 MW in HE4. The morning ramp lifts it to 25,925 MW in HE8, then behind-the-meter solar pulls it back to 24,117 MW by HE10 and down to 22,464 MW at HE12. Midday holds near 22,499 MW at HE13 before climbing to 27,273 MW by HE16. The evening peak arrives at 32,344 MW in HE19, with HE20 at 32,085 MW, and load is still 30,338 MW at HE22 before easing to 26,386 MW at HE24. For the other areas only the first hour of tomorrow was published at build time: BPAT 6,145 MW, NEVP 4,738 MW, AZPS 4,678 MW, PGE 2,429 MW, PACW 2,053 MW, IPCO 1,834 MW and PSEI 1,415 MW. No day-ahead forecast for PACE was available at build time.

No day-ahead load forecast published yet at build time for PACE.

Partial data: AZPS (1 hour published), BPAT (1 hour published), IPCO (1 hour published), NEVP (1 hour published), PACW (1 hour published), PGE (1 hour published), PSEI (1 hour published) — drawn as points, not a curve.

Solarchart

Tomorrow's CAISO solar forecast is stronger than today's across every zone, and it is published through HE17 only, so the afternoon decline past that hour was not available at build time. SP15 climbs from 4,613.6 MW in HE8 to 10,993.5 MW in HE9 and tops out at 13,959.1 MW in HE13, against today's high of 12,533.3 MW in HE15, and it is still 11,264.1 MW at HE17. NP15 peaks at 2,595.0 MW in HE12 versus 2,170.7 MW today, and ZP26 reaches 2,713.6 MW in HE13 versus 2,470.8 MW. Avista's contribution stays small at 12.8 MW at its HE15 high.

BPA does not publish solar generation separately, so this chart is the CAISO forecast only.

Tomorrow's forecast is published through HE17 at build time.

Windchart

BPA wind has all but died. Actuals peaked at 240.1 MW in HE22 yesterday, slid to 95.0 MW by HE1 today and were reading 4.0 MW at HE6, a single reading at the cutoff. In CAISO the overnight strength fades through tomorrow morning: SP15 opens at 4,083.4 MW in HE1, against 4,491.1 MW at today's HE24, drops to 944.7 MW at HE11 and rebuilds only to 1,871.4 MW at HE14 and 1,766.6 MW at HE17. NP15 falls from 1,065.5 MW in HE1 to 76.2 MW at HE13, recovering to 260.2 MW by HE17. ZP26 runs between 14.0 MW at HE11 and 45.4 MW at HE17. Hours beyond HE17 were not available at build time.

BPA wind actuals cover 24 of the last 24 hours to 05:00 PT; the hour beginning at the cutoff (HE6 on 2026-09-21) is one reading, not an hourly mean.

Tomorrow's forecast is published through HE17 at build time.

Hydrotable

BPA hydro generation is drifting lower into the shoulder season. Daily mean output was 4,173 MW on September 15 and 4,178 MW on the 16th, peaked at 4,388 MW on the 17th, then slipped to 4,005 MW, 4,056 MW and 3,994 MW over the following three days before falling to 3,648 MW today. The Columbia basin snowpack melted out on September 20, with all 177 reporting stations at zero, so percent-of-median is undefined. The Dalles April-September water supply forecast issued today stands at 83% of average, 77,900 KAF against a 94,166 KAF average.

Natural gastable

Gas is cheap across the West and cheapest in the Northwest. Henry Hub last traded at $2.97 on September 15. On today's trade date the lowest fuel-region price inside the CAISO balancing area is $2.48, with Puget Sound Energy at $2.68, NV Energy at $2.58, Portland General Electric at $2.56 and PacifiCorp East at $2.54. Arizona Public Service sits at $1.91 and PacifiCorp West is the outlier at $1.24, well under every other area. At these fuel costs gas units set a low marginal cost for tomorrow's evening peak.

Showing 7 of 203 CAISO fuel regions; all 203 are in this section's CSV.

Balancing-area rows are CAISO's aggregate fuel regions: the lowest fuel-region price inside that area on the trade date.

Other fleet and outagestable

All three Western nuclear units are at 100% power: Diablo Canyon 1 and 2 and Columbia Generating Station. On transmission, the largest curtailment is PATH_WOR at 24,908 MW of operating transfer capability curtailed in the E/I direction on the McCullough-Victorville 500 kV line, running to February 5, 2027, alongside published LDWP path limits of 27,678 MW and 24,908 MW. Tesla-Tracy carries 6,813 MW curtailed from today through September 26, and Adelanto-Victorville 6,741 MW through May 1, 2027. MALIN500_ISL has six records each curtailing 3,067 MW, mostly Round Mountain-Table Mountain series compensators out through November 1, plus Table Mountain-Tesla starting tomorrow through September 26 and a Round Mountain bus section today through September 23.

Showing the 12 largest of 39 CAISO transmission records at or above 500 MW.

The last 3 row(s) are published path limits, not equipment outages: the 3 largest of 26 in today's report.

"MW curtailed OTC" is operating transfer capability curtailed by an equipment outage; "MW path limit" is a limit the owner published on the path, not equipment out of service. Both are the largest value the record carries over tomorrow's intervals.

Price forecastchart

The price forecast for tomorrow was not available at build time, so this is today's cleared day-ahead shape. SP15 opened at $47.27 in HE1, rose to $49.53 in HE7, then collapsed through the solar hours to $23.90 in HE11 and a low of $22.85 in HE16 before the evening lift to $47.79 in HE19 and $43.63 at HE24. NP15 held higher through midday, from $51.13 in HE7 to a $32.00 floor in HE13 and a $53.29 peak in HE19. Malin ran the cheapest overnight at $30.72 in HE1, spiked to $42.07 in HE7, sat near $29.70 in HE10, peaked at $51.85 in HE19 and printed $27.96 in HE22 before bouncing to $40.14 in HE23.

These are today's day-ahead prices as they cleared yesterday afternoon, not a forecast. The price forecast arrives at 08:15 PT.

Yesterdaychart

Yesterday's real-time market punished the day-ahead midday at Malin and rewarded it at SP15. Malin cleared $13.31 in HE11 and $19.60 in HE15 day-ahead, but real-time ran $27.81 and $42.79, a -$23.19 spread in HE15 with -$20.77 in HE10 and -$20.65 in HE12. SP15 went the other way: day-ahead $27.59 in HE14 against real-time $6.63, a $20.95 spread, with $18.37 in HE13 and real-time down to $11.20 in HE11. The evening ramp then caught everyone short: SP15 real-time hit $52.91 in HE17 versus $35.50 day-ahead, and NP15 printed $59.87 in HE16 and $59.17 in HE17 against $40.08 and $40.77. Past HE19 day-ahead cleared above real-time, NP15 $53.58 versus $45.36 in HE20 and SP15 $49.63 versus $43.07 in HE19.