Executive Summary
The first in person TAC in over two years did not disappoint. The intrigue started when Eric Blakey revealed the real reason he was withdrawing from consideration as TAC Vice-Chair (the ERCOT board is unhappy with his employer’s anti-ERCOT lawsuit). The battery duration NPRR (NPRR1096) passed with a commitment by TAC to keep the issue open to find better solutions in the future. But when the RUC Offer floor/RUC Opt-Out NPRR came up, then things *really* got interesting. After two votes and an honest to god plot twist, Reliant’s compromise comments passed. The meeting ended up with the establishment of the Large Flexible (can’t say crypto, but that’s what it is) Load Task Force, which should meet for the first time some time next week.
Agenda
Notes
- Eric Blakey withdrew from consideration as TAC Vice-Chair and was replaced by Bob Helton (Engie). The ERCOT Board had decided not to endorse Eric as his company (Just Energy) had gone outside of the approved route for ERCOT disputes (dispute followed by Alternate Dispute Resolution followed by appeal to the PUC and only then appeal to the legal system) and jumped straight to a lawsuit.
- NPRR1096(Battery duration for NonSpin) – The NPRR passed as written (batteries can provide NonSpin only at the level that the are capable of holding with their current state of charge for four consecutive hours). TAC added an action item to their list to look into better ways to have limited duration resources provide reserves.
- NPRR1092(Reduce RUC Offer Floor and remove RUC Opt Out)- There was a lot of action on this item. A vote on Reliant’s compromise proposal, which would lower the offer floor to $200/MWh and allow opt out, but only up to two hours before a resource needed to start, failed by a single vote. A second attempt at compromise, this time with the floor raised to $500, also failed, as some of the people in favor of the lower number voted no, while few votes were switched from those in favor of the higher number. At this point, Richard Ross from AEP asked if changing his vote from abstain to yes on the $200 vote would have made the measure pass. ERCOT answered that yes, it would have. He then announced that he would like to vote again on $200. It was decided that he couldn’t do that given his first abstention, but that there could be a new vote on $250. At this point the room exploded into a festival of sidebars and coalition building and breaking. A ten minute recess was called, and when the dust settled the Reliant comments (with $250 instead of $200) passed. It was like the Red Wedding from Game of Thrones (totally unexpected if you hadn’t read the book).
- The Large Flexible Loads task force was created and should start meeting next week (actual date TBD)
