North America power markets short-term outlook: Rising demand and natural gas prices come to the rescue after a weak 2024

Cheap natural gas prices and warmer than normal conditions over the winter have driven a decline in energy prices to begin 2024 after what has been a volatile coupe of years in multiple regions of the country. From the current standpoint, 2024 looks to be a challenging year for price strength, but there is potential recovery coming as early as next year. Not only are there expected price increases coming in the natural gas price forecast, but for many regions there is incoming large load growth forecasted as well. The latter not only should help raise energy prices, but also drives the need for baseload capacity needed to serve this rising demand.