Time series analysis of generation fuel mix at the electricity market in Ercot region of Texas
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Greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity markets have come under heavy scrutiny of the global climate experts. Ever echoing environmental concerns have led to a rapid restructuring of the electricity markets. The energy landscape is morphing towards a greater reliance on renewable sources of energy in the generation fuel mix. This shift is more palpable in the advanced countries than in the developing countries. This study focuses on the changing evolution pattern of different sources of power production or on the changing generation fuel mix in the ERCOT region of Texas. Texas has become a leader in the wind energy production and transmission in US. Different time series analysis tools and techniques have been used to accurately interpret the behavior of evolution of different fossil and non-fossil sources and short term reliable forecasts were generated from the most reliable models. Different explanatory variables like the price of gas, price of coal, price of electricity, fuel consumption, electric demand and temperature had been used to have the necessary domain information of the power production system. The daily time series for selected hours for different sources gave more interesting results than the series used to evaluate the intra daily pattern or the daily load profile. Interesting causal relations had emerged among the different sources of power production in the generation fuel mix. In the time series of daily load profile, renewable and nuclear had a strong effect on the power production pattern of both coal and gas. Price of coal and gas affected the power production pattern depending on whether the fuel had been used for the residential, commercial, or the industrial power generation. Interesting temperature effects had been observed for selected hours of the day in case of the daily data. The penetration effects of wind had been more significant during the morning and the evening hours and the price of coal and gas fuel affect the power production based upon the specific residential or commercial usage. The use of better quality, high price coal had been replacing gas for most of the hours. The heating degree days and the cooling degree days had a different effect on the power production from coal and gas for different hours of the day. Gas had been mainly used for space heating for most of the selected hours.