Author: STEVE REEDY

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…

Executive Summary Today’s Wholesale Market Working Group meeting was taken up almost entirely by NPRR1108(ERCOT to approve or deny all outages).  Generators as a group are very scared about what this will imply for their ability to schedule outages/outage crews.  Luminant has posted some comments that seem to present a fairly comprehensive set of concerns,…

Executive Summary Another two topic CMWG meeting (like last month).  The first topic, nodal prices for load resources, got a lot of discussion regarding how netting would or wouldn’t be allowed for Controllable Load Resources co-located with Generation Resources.  This may be discussed at other meetings, as it is not purely a congestion issue.  The…

Executive Summary In a lightly attended Spring Break CWG/MCWG the only action taken was a non-endorsement of a compromise NPRR (NPRR1112-Reduction of Unsecured Credit) that the CWG had essentially written via its comments.  Even though they had written the comments that were approved by the Protocol Revision Subcommittee, CWG decided to not endorse it as…

Executive Summary Only two issues of ERCOT market note were discussed at today’s PUC Open meeting.  In a discussion on conservative operations, reliability unit commitment, and price formation the commission seemed to come to the conclusion that ERCOT needs to start deploying Non-Controllable Loads providing RRS before EEA (like they do for Emergency Response Service)…

Executive Summary PRS held a short meeting today, as many people wanted to listen to the Texas Senate Business and Commerce Committee’s hearing on the ERCOT market.  The securitization NPRRs were introduced, NPRR1096(Duration for batteries providing NonSpin) passed, a new NPRR allowing for full fuel cost recovery for Reliability Unit Committed (RUC’d) resources was introduced…

Executive Summary This was the first ERCOT Board meeting in the new ERCOT Austin offices, and while most of the meeting was the level of rubber stamping one has come to expect from an ERCOT board meeting, there were a couple of big surprises.  First, (PUC) Chairman Lake told ERCOT to begin implementing NPRR1108(ERCOT to…

Executive Summary The Wholesale Market Subcommittee meeting covered two noteworthy issues today.  First, Carl Raish gave his annual demand response analysis, which is always fascinating. (This year he added rooftop solar analysis, also fascinating).  Second, the minimum amount of NonSpin that needs to be supplied by “SCED dispatchable resources” (i.e. not load) was discussed.  ERCOT…

Executive Summary Today’s Wholesale Market Working Group meeting was short and efficient.  The group quickly discussed the new Reliability Unit Commitment report, NPRR1100 (Tesla Microgridding), NPRR1108(ERCOT to approve or deny all resource outages), NPRR1100(Black Start Reform), and that Nitika Mago is now the contact person for discussions about battery testing for NonSpin. Agenda ERCOT Meeting…

Executive Summary Another long TAC (like last month), but this one was interesting all the way through.  The forces lined up against NPRR1092(Reduce RUC Offer Floor and remove RUC Opt Out) put up an impressive goal line stand and got the issue tabled for a workshop on March 10th.  The next PUC open meeting will…