Guidehouse’s 2017 Mid-Year Energy Market Outlook: Ongoing Drivers and Cutting-Edge Trends in North American Energy Market

Industry trends and uncertainties continue to transform the North American energy market. Examples include increased renewables in the power sector, technological innovation in energy storage, shifting supply and demand patterns in the natural gas market, and environmental policy uncertainty due to the administration change. Guidehouse’s 2017 Mid-Year Energy Outlook (NEMO) analyzes how these trends and others are expected to affect the energy and capacity mix as well as market prices over the next 24 years.

Energy Demand

The rate of growth in energy consumption and peak demand has decreased in recent years despite an increase in economic growth. The United States and Canada appear to be transitioning from the long-term trend where growth in energy consumption closely tracked economic growth. While NEMO forecasts overall growth in both consumption and peak demand, the levels of growth (as well as energy efficiency and other demand-side resources) vary between regions. For example, Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and parts of Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) are among the faster growing regions in the forecast. However, New York, New England, and PJM are expected to see lower levels of growth, leading to a slowdown in generation additions. This marks a shift in PJM, where coal retirements, the capacity market, and low natural gas prices have driven the construction of many new merchant natural gas combined cycle power plants in recent years.

Renewable Energy Growth

Despite the absence of a carbon policy, Guidehouse expects that solar installations will continue to grow in North America as costs decline—though not as steeply as in recent history—and as the technology continues to be pushed by state policies and consumers. In 2016, the United States installed 14.8 GW of solar PV projects, second only to China for annual installations that year. The wind forecast is more dependent on the federal Production Tax Credit that is already declining and set to expire by 2020. This has led to a boom in construction that is expected to peak in 2020 (the last year projects can go online and still get 100% of the tax credit) before declining steeply.

The convergence of increasing renewables penetration and declining battery costs indicates that battery storage is likely on the precipice of increased deployment across the electric grid for renewables integration and the provision of ancillary services. For the first time, Guidehouse’s NEMO includes an energy storage addition outlook. Energy storage is being implemented in areas such as California to meet policy targets without adding significant new natural gas generation. The revenue that storage projects would expect to receive from avoiding curtailment of renewables is not yet enough to cover the overnight cost of storage, though this could change in the future as the costs of storage decline and renewables penetration increases.

Natural Gas Market Transformation

While the power market grapples with the evolving energy generation mix and the associated effects on the grid, the natural gas market in North America continues its own evolution characterized by threshold events. Exports of natural gas have overtaken imports into the country for the first time in 60 years. US natural gas pipeline exports to Mexico have more than quadrupled since 2010. Exports by ship occurred for the first time from the lower 48 states, with the Cheniere Sabine Pass liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility delivering LNG to the world market in February 2016. From this point forward, at least to the end of the NEMO term in 2040, Guidehouse expects exports by pipeline and by ship to continue increasing. Exports are anticipated to grow to represent over 18% of the US natural gas market by 2040.

Guidehouse’s NEMO covers the changing supply and demand dynamics in the natural gas market, continued renewables generation buildout, slowing load growth, the introduction of emerging technologies like storage, and the continued absence of a federal carbon policy. David Walls and Rob Patrylak will present further details on Guidehouse’s forecast via a webinar on September 13.