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In a release posted on its website recently, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) announced that it has canceled the procurement from a Request for Proposal (RFP) seeking additional capacity “due to the limited response from the market”.
This limited response included “only a small 11.1 megawatts (MW) of potentially eligible capacity”, ERCOT outlined in the release.
“In declining to proceed with the RFP, ERCOT weighed factors such as the costs of the program, including costs of administration, and the incremental additional complexity for the control room operators against the very small amount of capacity that could be provided and the associated minimal reliability benefits,” ERCOT stated in the release.
“The RFP was based on probabilistic analysis indicating that if the ERCOT Region experienced a storm during the 2023-2024 winter Peak Load Season comparable to last year’s Winter Storm Elliott, there would be a 20 percent risk of ERCOT entering Energy Emergency Alert (EEA) conditions,” the organization noted.
“To reduce this elevated risk, ERCOT sought to procure up to 3,000 MW of additional capacity that could be called upon if needed as an added layer of protection during peak times,” it added.
In the release, ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas said, “the request for additional capacity was an extra layer of precaution to mitigate higher risk during extreme weather this winter”.
“ERCOT is not projecting emergency conditions this winter and expects to have adequate resources to meet demand,” he added.
“One of the important outcomes of this RFP process was learning what the market response would be to this type of capacity request,” Vegas continued.
“We’ll take these lessons and continue to work with the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the market to evaluate other types of demand response products that could contribute meaningfully to electric reliability in the future. In the interim, ERCOT will continue to advance its winter preparedness through the many reliability programs and tools we have available,” he went on to state.
In the release, ERCOT said it has implemented many reforms and grid improvements since 2021, “including weatherization inspections of electric generation units and transmission facilities, additional ancillary services, and firm fuel supply service”.
“Additionally, regardless of the market response today, ERCOT firmly believes that there remains tremendous potential in expanding demand response capabilities throughout the industrial, commercial, and residential customer classes,” ERCOT added.
Earlier this month, ERCOT announced an update to emergency operation reserve levels “as part of ERCOT’s reliability-first approach to grid operations”.
In a release posted on its site, the organization noted that it had increased the minimum operating reserves requirements for emergency operations for each of its three Energy Emergency Alert (EEA) levels.
EEA 3 will now occur if reserves drop below 1,500 MW and are not expected to recover within 30 minutes, or if frequency drops below 59.8 Hz for any period of time, ERCOT highlighted in the release. EEA 2 will occur if reserves reach 2,000 MW (previously 1,750 MW) and are not expected to recover within 30 minutes, or if frequency has dropped below 59.91 Hz for 15 minutes (previously 30 minutes), and EEA 1 will occur if reserves reach 2,500 MW (previously 2,300 MW) and are not expected to recover within 30 minutes, the release pointed out.
“The generation resource mix that powers the grid has changed, and how we operate the grid has evolved with it,” ERCOT Senior VP and COO Woody Rickerson said in that release.
“By increasing the minimum reserve levels for the different EEA levels, we are better representing system requirements during emergency conditions,” he added.
ERCOT periodically studies the level of online reserves that must be preserved to maintain system reliability even during emergency conditions, the organization highlighted in its earlier November release.
Last month, ERCOT announced that an RFP was issued to stakeholders to increase operating reserves.
“This capacity request was informed by several factors, including significant peak Load growth since last winter, recent and proposed retirements of dispatchable generation resources, and recent extreme winter weather events,” ERCOT noted in a release posted on its site in October.
“The Monthly Outlook for Resource Adequacy report determined that if conditions in the winter 2023-2024 season during the peak demand hour (which is in the morning during winter) were comparable to peak demand conditions last winter, which occurred during Winter Storm Elliott in December 2022, the probability level of entering into emergency conditions would be higher than ERCOT’s acceptable elevated-risk threshold,” it added.
To contact the author, email andreas.exarheas@rigzone.com
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