I have put some collections of other merchant electricity price in the U.S. history with hour by hour prices here. The EIA only has on-peak electricity merchant prices. But if you want hourly data you need to go to the ISO websites that can be more painful. I have put together data for the PJM the NE-ISO and other websites in the database files below. This price history for California, PJM and New England has more refined on-peak and off-peak data and is not necessarily updated. The files demonstrate how to work with large hourly databases, how to compute spark spreads, market heat rates and simulated profit for alternative technologies.
How to Get Update Files and Get Detailed Hourly Data for U.S. Markets
The price databases below go to the ISO websites and get data. They have off-peak and on-peak data and include much more detail than the EIA data. I am always in the process of updating the data.
Lessons from Historic Review of Merchant Electricity Prices in the U.S.
The US regions have a lot of interesting case studies in merchant electricity pricing. The first and most dramatic case study is the California case study that began in the year 2000. People use this case study to demonstrate that merchant markets cannot work or that the merchant markets must be studied carefully. This case study involved questions of market power, true costs of electricity, incentives to build new capacity and demand response. Other case studies include the bankruptcies caused by prices in the northeast after 2001. More cases can be used to demonstrate how much gas affects the price of electricity in different regions and how the declining growth in electricity demand along with renewables has pushed down current and forward prices. This is why I have included forward price downloads from the CME. Forward prices that are automatically downloaded from the CME (there are a few problems with formatting data) are included in the first file below.