PUC 2/25/22

Executive Summary Today’s Public Utility Commission meeting ended with a bang, as the commissioners 1) walked back their support for NPRR1092(Reduce RUC Offer floor and remove RUC Opt Out) and supported a full stakeholder process on that NPRR, and 2) Expressed concern that price formation has gotten weird as evinced by yesterday’s price spikes (even…

WMS 1/5/22

Executive Summary And with the Wholesale Market Subcommittee meeting, the ERCOT stakeholder process has returned after its winter break. The biggest news was that NPRR1092 (Reduce RUC Offer Floor and remove RUC OPT OUT option) got endorsed in a highly contested and debated 65-35 vote, with loads, Retail Electric Providers, Munis and Transmission utilities lining…

Brazos Bankruptcy

The Gist Due to a mix of planned and forced outages during Winter Storm Uri Brazos Electric Co-op had essentially no generators operating during much of the $9000/MWh pricing, resulting in essentially $2B of charges from ERCOT.  Brazos declared bankruptcy and the matter is currently in court. Important Actions 3/3/22 ERCOT and Brazos agree to…

NPRR1088 Reduce Credit Requirements for Traders

The Gist NPRR1088 would adjust credit/collateral requirements.  A little background first.  The current (extremely complicated) calculations used to determine the collateral required to participate in the ERCOT market include Forward Adjustment Factors that are the average North Hub price in ICE for the next three weeks divided by the recent average price of the North…

Securitization N

The Gist Securitization N is a term used to describe a set of payouts and charges designed to lessen the economic impact of certain charges that were assessed to Load Serving Entities (LSEs) during Winter Storm Uri.  House Bill 4492 amended (among other things) Subchapter N of section 39, utilities code, to allow ERCOT to…

Securitization M

The Gist Securitization M is a term used to describe a set of payouts and charges designed to lessen the economic impact of the defaults of competitive (i.e. non public power) entities on their ERCOT invoices during Winter Storm Uri.  House Bill 4492 amended (among other things) Subchapter M of section 39, utilities code, to…

NPRR1124 Allow Full Fuel Cost Recovery for RUC’d Units

The Gist Prior to NPRR1124 the maximum amount that resources receiving Reliabiity Unit Commitment (RUC) instructions were allowed to recover for start up and minimum energy was capped by the fuel index price (FIP) times a multiplier.  This NPRR would allow the operator of a RUC’d resource with gas costs over the FIP/multiplier determined cap…