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The Gist In Spring 2022 the PUC put out an RFP for an expert advisor to help them understand the implications of various Phase 2 proposals.  Only two firms responded, Potomac Economics (the current holder of the IMM contract) and E3 (the author of the LSE Obligation proposal). Important Actions Reference   Meeting Notes 3/31/22…

The Gist If a resource’s fuel costs go more than $1/MMBTU over the Fuel Index Price(FIP), a resource can submit “Exceptional Fuel Costs” that get included in the Mitigated Offer Cap calculation (rather than FIP).  If this happens ERCOT has to post a market notice within five business days notifying market participants that this has…

Executive Summary The commissioners were very concerned about the timelines ERCOT presented in their January 10th comments for implementing phase 1 and 2 of the PUC roadmap for market reform, particularly for firm fuel service and backstop reliability service.  ERCOT was instructed to look into hiring outside contractors to complete the projects by next winter…

Executive Summary At today’s SAWG ERCOT presented the Long Term Load Forecast (LTLF) and the Capacity, Demand, and Reserve (CDR) report.  The biggest take away is that the CDR will undergo major changes soon; these will be run through the normal stakeholder process, but they will likely have the implicit approval of Commissioner McAdams.  The…

Executive Summary The new ERCOT Board of Directors met for the first meeting with the whole group.  Most of the meeting was held in executive session, with only four topics discussed in the general (open to the public) session. Of the topics discussed in the general session, the most interesting one for stakeholders was corporate…

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…

The Gist A winter storm hit ERCOT  February 3-5, 2022, resulting in a peak load of approximately 69GW on the morning of February 4th.  The grid was not substantially stressed during this event.  What was noteworthy, however, was the size of the miss on the load forecast.  Load was predicted to peak at 74.7GW (~6GW…