ERCOT Wholesale Market Working Group Meeting Notes - 8/4

Agenda           

1.     Antitrust Admonition

2.     ERCOT standing WMWG reports

a.     No questions were asked about the standing reports

                                               i.     Monthly solar power forecast

                                             ii.     Monthly wind power forecast

                                            iii.     Monthly intra-hour IRR forecast

                                            iv.     June 2023 WMWG GREDP summary

3.     ECRS deployment presentation and discussion

a.     ERCOT presentation posted and given.

                                               i.     June 20^th

1.     A stakeholder asked whether it was reasonable to assume that resources that are bid in (at $5,000) that haven’t been deployed is because of congestion. ERCOT answered affirmatively, saying that at that point system lambda is $5,000 and should be only impacted that the transmission constraint.

2.     Another commenter asked why the issues were not resolved via HRUC. ERCOT will have to go back and look to see where these issues were visible to RUC or not.

                                             ii.     July 10th

1.     The additional deployment of ECRS and non-spin was to maintain sufficient capacity and avoid a cascade on the system while serving load on the system.

2.     The conditions were: high load day, setting sun, low wind.

3.     The potential for cascade on July 10^th was raised and it was asked how we can account for that possibility in the RPG planning analyses. ERCOT noted that they will look at study cases, but as for the specifics on this date, the recently approved San Antonio project will address a lot of that concern.

b.     ERCOT was asked about the simultaneous deployment of ECRS and non-spin and whether co-deployment would be common-place going forward. They answered that this has been done based on operator judgment and is not a specific process.

c.     ERCOT is performing additional analyses of these events to see what other actions could have been taken.

4.     Capacity Monitor Views

a.     Market participants expressed a desire to see an effort to ensure that the data for each type of AS is the same or comparable for different types of resources and products. This isn’t an immediate need, but is desirable.

b.     Request for additional ESR detail

                                               i.     Specifically, the market participants asked to add another sub-type for ESR’s that will show how much is being deployed. There was a recognition that state-of-charge might make this more of a challenge, in particular aggregated state-of-charge.

c.     Other changes

                                               i.     Another request was to break out data on CLR from LFL data.

d.     ERCOT agreed to look at this and bring information back to the group about what could be done and what the time frame might be required to achieve it. They also noted that SCR822 was intended to bring in a dash board and report for energy storage. They are working through the implementation of this change.

e.     ERCOT may provide short tutorial at a follow up WMWG meeting about how to view/spool existing data.

5.     NPRR Presentations and Discussion

a.     NPRR 1181

                                               i.     ERCOT provided a short summary, stating that this revision is intended to provide operators with information regarding fuel inventories for coal and lignite to enhance situation awareness. They plan to revise NPRR1181 in response to comments that they’ve received (within a week).

                                             ii.     It was noted that the discussion on this topic have revealed that there is a decent amount of variety in the coal/lignite fleet in Texas.

                                            iii.     Some QSE’s indicated that they supported the need to provide fuel resource data for situational awareness for reliability, but are likely to oppose additional requirements to provide information that goes beyond that. They indicated a similar approach to NPRR1170.

b.     NPRR 1188

                                               i.     This revision is regarding nodal settlement for CLR’s.

                                             ii.     ERCOT presentation posted and given.

                                            iii.     This revision is intended to dispatch and price CLR’s that are not aggregated resources to be done on a nodal basis. If they are at a net metering site, then the resources can offer their full capacity into the ERCOT market (different from traditional PUN’s). This should allow more efficient dispatch of these resources. The current netting provision for passive load will not be given to a CLR that is co-located at a generation site with net metering. It was stated that the net-metering rules don’t make this distinction.

                                            iv.     It was pointed out that for REP’s and LSE’s this will change the way you price products and what you might put on Power to Choose.

                                              v.     Stakeholders expressed concern for nodal vs zonal hopping. ERCOT’s intention is that once you register as a CLR you will be settled at a nodal price, but cannot elect to change to zonal pricing. They only way an entity could do this is to leave the market and then re-register as a different type of entity, but interconnection requirements discourage this behavior. Others pointed out that this could create an incentive to leave the market as a resource if someone doesn’t like the pricing, which is an undesirable outcome.

                                            vi.     Stakeholders asked when this change would become effective. ERCOT answered that it wouldn’t be until RTC+B was completed and stakeholders responded favorably, saying that would allow time for the market to absorb the change.

                                           vii.     Others expressed concern about inconsistent treatment of NCLR’s collocated with generation, and CLR’s, saying that these changes would be a disincentivize for loads to register as CLR’s. They pointed out that if they have to be a CLR for all 24hrs, then they can no longer be net against their generation, therefore this wouldn’t be used. Stakeholders will file comments.

                                         viii.     The group discussed the nuances of zonal for nodal pricing would work for different combinations of resources and hypothetical situations and how prices are weighted for settlement.

                                            ix.     Stakeholders requested that ERCOT walk though some of these scenarios at LFLTF.

c.     NPRR 1162

                                               i.     ERCOT is working with Tenaska on draft language for an associated SCR, so NPRR1162 is tabled. The SCR may replace the NPRR.

6.     Other topics from attendees

a.     A stakeholder raised the RUC workshop being co-sponsored by RCWG and WMWG. It was suggested that this should include looking at online non-spin not being able to be deployed by RUC. WMWG members were encouraged to participate in the workshop, on August 14^th.

7.     Adjourn