Weaker natural gas prices overpowered heavier loads to cut the New York Independent System Operator's wholesale power prices in May, stakeholders learned Wednesday.
During NYISO's Business Issues Committee, Rana Mukerji, the ISO's senior vice president for market structures, reported that real-time load-weighted locational marginal prices were $21.99/MWh this May, compared with $26.57/MWh in April and $32.52/MWh in May 2015.
At the Transco Zone 6 New York location, spot gas averaged $1.58/MMBtu in May, compared with $1.62/MMBtu in April, and they were down by about 40% from May 2015, Mukerji said.
Demand averaged 397 GWh/d in May, compared with 385 GWh/d in April a $409 GWh/d in May 2015.
From the customer point of view, including all costs, LMPs averaged $26.52/MWh in May, compared with $30.84/MWh in April and $35.37/MWh in May 2015, according to Mukerji's presentation.
NYISO does not allow the media to listen to the meeting's conference call.
For the year to date through May, customer costs have averaged $29.85/MWh, less than half of the $60.96/MWh average for the first 5 months of 2015, and less than 28% of the $108.36/MWh average for the first five months of 2014.
The Long Island load pocket had the highest real-time average LMP, at $25.21/MWh, while the North Zone D area, which includes the largely rural northeast corner of the state, had the lowest real-time average LMP, at $10.75/MWh.
