ERCOT Technical Advisory Committee Meeting Notes - 5/25

Agenda (Presentations not hyperlinked are imbedded in .zip files on the meeting page.)

1)    Antitrust Admonition

2)    Approval of TAC Meeting Minutes (Vote)

a)    March 30, 2022

b)    April 13, 2022

c)     April 18, 2022

3)    April Board Meeting / May PUCT Meeting Update

a)    ERCOT Report on NPRR1112, Reduction of Unsecured Credit Limits

i)      This was tabled by the Board, and ERCOT was requested to put together some information on what other ISO’s due with regard to unsecured credit.

ii)    ERCOT presentation posted and given.

iii)   A few of the ISO’s are considering whether they want to lower the amount of unsecured credit allowed, which in other ISO’s currently ranges from $100M to $1.75B. The current ERCOT total is $1.4B.

iv)   Commenters stated that it seemed that ERCOT’s practice is pretty comparable to other ISO’s. ERCOT concurred.

v)     One commenter pointed out that people would’ve been locked out of the market without unsecured credit during WS Uri, the impact of which could’ve been people buying in the real-time market at the max price.

vi)   Commenters questioned ERCOT about which aspects of this were going to be presented to the Board by ERCOT and which points need to be made by other stakeholders.

vii)  ERCOT was asked about the time line of giving a potential 4-month runway from PUC approval, if the unsecured credit is changed. ERCOT stated that this is their plan.

viii)A stakeholder asked whether there would be consideration of increasing the credit limits for parties impacted by the reduction of unsecured credit limits. ERCOT answered that there haven’t been any discussions about increasing the credit limit of entities who are close to their credit limit. It was suggested that this is an issue for CWG.

ix)   TAC will make sure that they have an advocate who can speak to the TAC comments and positions.

4)    Review of ERCOT Market Impact Statements and ERCOT Opinions

a)    ERCOT supports all of the revision requests on the agenda for vote today.

5)    PRS Report (Vote)

a)    Presentation posted and given by PRS leadership.

b)    NPRR1100, Allow Generation Resources and Energy Storage Resources to Serve Customer Load When the Customer and the Resource are Disconnected from the ERCOT System – URGENT

i)      Recommended for approval via separate ballot based on Oncor’s 5/19/22 comments as approved by PRS.

c)     NPRR1110, Black Start Requirements Update

i)      Recommended for approval on the combo ballot

d)    NPRR1119, Removal of Extraneous Language Pertaining to the Calculation of Weekly Generation and Load Resource Capacity Forecasts

i)      Recommended for approval on the combo ballot

e)    NPRR1121, Add a Posting Requirement to the Exceptional Fuel Cost Submission Process

i)      Recommended for approval on the combo ballot

f)     NPRR1129, Posting ESI IDs of Transmission-Voltage Customer Opt-Outs – URGENT

i)      Recommended for approval on the combo ballot

g)    NPRR1130, Weatherization Inspection Fees Sunset Date Extension – URGENT

i)      Recommended for approval on the combo ballot

h)    Annual Review of Other Binding Documents List

i)      Approved on the combo ballot as recommended by PRS

6)    Other Binding Documents (Vote)

a)    OBDRR040, ORDC Changes Related to NPRR1131, Controllable Load Participation in Non-Spin

i)      Tabled on the combo ballot

b)    OBDRR041, Updates to Requirements for Aggregate Load Participation in the ERCOT Markets

i)      This has a workshop scheduled for May 31^st.

ii)    There was support to move this forward on behalf of energy entrepreneurs, and other commenters.

iii)   Telsa spoke to support this in the context of virtual power plants. They stated that the point is to get this rolling in ERCOT so that we can see how this works (or doesn’t) in lessons learned. Another QSE stated that they aggregate solar already and have for a number of years, asking what Tesla was trying to do here. Tesla responded that they are trying to address demand response.

iv)   Another stakeholder pointed out that this change seems minimal, but has a large impacts since it changes aggregation from demand response as it was created in ~2012 to aggregation of generation resources.

v)     Tabled on the combo ballot via separate ballot

7)    RMS Report (Vote)

a)    Presentation posted by RMS leadership.

b)    RMGRR168, Modify ERCOT Responsibilities During the Mass Transition

i)      Tabled on the combo ballot

8)    ROS Report (Vote)

a)    Presentation posted and given by ROS leadership.

b)    PGRR100, Steady-State Case Building Timeline Update

i)      Recommended for approval on the combo ballot

c)     NOGRR240, Direct Current Tie (DC Tie) Ride-Through Requirements

i)      Recommended for approval on the combo ballot

9)    WMS Report

a)    Presentation posted and given by WMS leadership.

10) Large Flexible Load Task Force Update (Vote)

a)    LFLTF Charter

i)      The charter was called up and there were no comments.

ii)    Charter approved on the combo ballot

b)    LFLTF Leadership

i)      Chair – Bill Blevins

ii)    Vice Chair – Bob Wittmeyer

iii)   Approved on the combo ballot

c)     TAC leadership expressed a desire for an update on this task force at the next meeting.

11) ERCOT Report

a)    Proposed Maximum Daily Resource Planned Outage Capacity Methodology (Related to NPRR1108, ERCOT Shall Approve or Deny All Resource Planned Outage Requests) (Vote)

i)      ERCOT presentation posted and given. They solicited stakeholder comments to be provided by May 23^rd regarding MDRPOC. These should be posted to today’s meeting page.

ii)    Three sets of comments were received. ERCOT is in the process of reviewing these.

(1)  ERCOT was asked to regularly review the methodology and agrees to provide an update to TAC annually in order to receive feedback. ERCOT did offer to track the number of outages denied due to being denied for being over MDRPOC. That way they could see whether that starts increasing during part of the year.

(2)  ERCOT was asked to post the inputs used to calculate the cap. ERCOT thought that this would be time consuming. Commenters stated that they would appreciate being able to see the data to see how ERCOT is arriving at the cap, and they don’t understand how being transparent would be more effort. ERCOT answered that the calculation will be automated going forward and so producing a report requires more time. ERCOT might be open to providing it at a given point of time, but doing this for every hour over a certain period of time is a project that requires development.

(3)  Stakeholder offered some specific tweaks such as referring to the CDR instead of SARA and applying the same concept for all the seasons. They also suggested that they want to alter the percentage of unplanned outages for peak load, if this is not being done. Another commenter stated that each time ERCOT issues an AAN it moves risk to some point to the future.

(4)  ERCOT was asked whether they have looked at how other ISO’s address this topic. SPP has a similar process and they post their curve daily. ERCOT noted that SPP’s process is very similar to what ERCOT is proposing.

(5)  ERCOT was asked about the possibility of resources trading outages. They answered that that might work within a plant facility, but swapping outages around on the system could be dangerous. If a specific request is in mind, ERCOT might be able to talk about it on a case-by-case basis. Within 90 days, however, those planned outages are in the models, so that is more problematic. ERCOT stated that idea is more complex than it seems. Another stakeholder pointed out that under section 5 of the protocols, regarding OSA period, a resource can reschedule the outage within 120 days. This may get at a slightly different aspect of this.

(6)  Other commenters pointed out that this methodology is intended to be forward-looking, but is based on historical information. With regard to solar, this does not incorporate solar growth on the system. ERCOT said that it does include information on firm plans for solar growth as they model the performance that MDRPOC is based upon.

iii)   This is not an item for voting, so leadership suggested that the stakeholders who provided comments work together to consolidate the comments, because TAC is only going to send one set of comments to the Board. TAC could hold a workshop to merge comments or approving them would require an additional WebEx. Stakeholders who provided comments agreed that they thought they could merge comments.

iv)   After those who provided comments have a chance to look at this, TAC leadership will propose a date. This goes to the Board next month, so this will have to be scheduled soon.

b)    Review of Operations on May 13, 2022

i)      Moved to future agenda – likely the WebEx to be held in the next two weeks

12) Other Business

a)    Default Uplift Update

i)      ERCOT issued a market notice that listed all the short pays that are still left over from Feb 2021. Essentially, there is $1.2M in emergency short pay won’t be covered by securitization; it’ll have to be covered by uplift to the market. The distribution of the funds will probably take a few weeks.

ii)    There was also a market notice this morning regarding an error in EMS based on the last time frame instead of on an average. The error goes too far back to do a re-settlement. They are going to choose some sample days (including one during WS Uri) to analyze to understand the scope of the error. They are in the process of making related adjustments.

b)    Market Readiness update (NPRR1093 and FFRA)

i)      ERCOT presentation posted and given. This topic will be discussed in more detail at TWG. The next thing coming is firm fuel supply. If your facility doesn’t have an availability plan for black start, synchronous condenser, and RMR that will be the type of transaction used to communicate your schedules if you’re awarded firm fuel.

c)     Stakeholder Process Discussion

i)      TAC is looking at how to interface with the new Board. TAC leadership has had several meetings and stated that the Board definitely sees value in the stakeholder process. There are some things that TAC needs to do:

(1)  Review the subcommittees – do any need to need to be combined or changed?

(2)  Is there any criteria that membership to a subcommittee or for TAC members? The Board wants people present at TAC who can make decisions for the group they represent instead of having to table things to go get decisions for their companies. This does not mean an officer of the company.

(3)  The Board and the Commission want a separate path for revisions that are requested by the PUC.

(4)  How to interface with the Board and the RNM? Should this be done as a TAC report, or something that focuses only on non-unanimous revisions. There is no plan to change TAC to report RNM instead of the Board at this time.

(5)  Review of the appeals process – should TAC be able to appeal to the Board if RNM does something different than TAC? This may require adjustment of meeting schedules. There is not a clear process for appealing a Board decision to the PUC.

(6)  There has to be an answer back to the Board by July 11^th. TAC leadership wants to discuss this in the next 30 days. This may be done as a WebEx in the next two weeks.

d)    June TAC Meeting Date

i)      The next regularly scheduled TAC meeting will be moved to June 29^th. Leadership was reminded that there may be a LFLTF meeting that day. They will look at the calendar, but are constrained on where they can move it.

ii)    They are also working on scheduling the workshop for NPRR1108.

13) Combo Ballot (Vote)

a)    Passed

14) Adjourn