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The Gist As part of phase 1 of the PUC’s market redesign efforts, ERCOT was directed to implement a firm fuel service, as imagined in Senate Bill 3.  It would be paid to gas generators that have onsite fuel storage to run for at least 48 hours.  This will be implemented in two phases; the…

The Gist A VSAT study is performed by ramping up generation in one area (in this case the panhandle) and ramping down generation in another area (or ramping up load) until one of two things happens; 1, the study predicts a voltage collapse, or 2) the tool runs out of resources to ramp.  At that…

The Gist NPRR1110 is a reform of the current black start resource procurement process.  It originally increased the contract term to four years (from two years), required that black start resources have enough fuel on site to run the resource at maximum output for 72 hours, among other things.   Important Actions 11/22/21 ERCOT files NPRR1110…

The Gist NPRR1100 allows a resource and a co-located load to use an emergency switching solution (of DSP/TDSP system) to form a microgrid when both the resource and the load are disconnected from the grid by a transmission outage. NPRR1100 was filed by Tesla to allow them to use a utility scale battery near their…

The Gist Every year ERCOT looks at historical data to determine how much Ancillary Services (reserves, or ‘AS’)  it needs to procure over the coming year.  Currently it does this for four reserves; Regulation Up (REGUP) , Regulation Down (REGDN) , Non-Spinning Reserves (NSRS, or NonSpin), and Responsive Reserves (RRS).  The current (as of 1/1/2022) …

The Gist ERCOT performs studies every hour looking into the rest of the day (and later in the day into the next day as well).  The studies use load, wind and solar forecasts and also Qualifying Scheduling Entities’ (QSE’s) submitted Current Operating Plans (COPs) to look for situations where there will be irresolvable transmission problems…

The Gist On 6/30/21 the Public Utility Commission (PUC) issued an order in project 52266 waiving the 60 day confidentiality of outage reports and requiring ercot to post a report of forced resource outages three days after an operating day.  This NPRR contains language originally in NPRR1084 that puts that requirement into ERCOT protocols.  Important…

The Gist As part of Senate Bill 7 (1999), which deregulated the electricity market in Texas, there is a provision that at least 50% of new generation build in Texas, excluding renewables, needs to be natural gas, reportedly placed in the bill by/at the behest of Rep. Tommy Merritt.  The relevant (to this issue) text…

The Gist Backstop Reliability Service (BRS) is one of the major new programs envisioned by the PUC in the phase 2 of its market redesign blueprint.  BRS provides payments to resources to withhold themselves from the market until there are emergency conditions.  This will cause the price to increase and thus provide incentives for more…

The Gist The Day-Ahead Market (DAM) is a complex (non-convex) beast that on a few occasions breaks down and takes longer than expected to run.  This topic page serves as a log of those events and links to meetings in which they were discussed. Important Actions 2/1/22 ERCOT has DAM delay for Operating Day 2/2/22…