NPRR1107 Weatherization Fees

Topics

By STEVE REEDY

The Gist

NPRR1107 sets out how generators are to pay for all the weatherization inspections for the first year of inspections. The Public Utility Commission required that generators pay for all the costs that ERCOT incurs for the increased weatherization inspections that they are doing in the wake of Winter Storm Uri. The original NPRR that ERCOT submitted (on an urgent basis, one day before the Protocol Revision Subcommittee meeting) proposed that for this first round, all the costs for inspections be put into two buckets, one for renewable resources and one for fossil/nuclear resources. The buckets would then be spread out amongst the renewable and fossil/nuclear resources that got inspected. The generators got very upset by this proposed method and reworked it so that all the charges go into a single bucket and get distributed to all resources on an installed MW basis. This was a significant wealth transfer from 1) Generator owners whose resources failed (and thus would get inspected in this first round) to generator owners whose resources did not fail and 2) Renewable generation owners to fossil/nuclear generation owners.

Important Actions

11/9/21 ERCOT files original NPRR
11/17/21 Several generation owners file comments that have all the charges going into one bucket that gets distributed to all generators on a per MW basis.
11/23/21 ERCOT files comments that clean up the distribution method to make it easier to implement
12/10/21 ERCOT board approves ERCOT 11/23/21 comments
12/21/21 PUC Approves