ERCOT Wholesale Market Working Group Meeting Notes - 12/1

Agenda                       

1.     Antitrust Admonition

2.     ERCOT Standing WMWG Reports

a.     The solar power forecast is not yet posted. ERCOT will ask and follow-up if it won’t be posted.  (This was posted after the meeting.)

b.     A question was asked about the RUC report. It was noted that RUC appears to be on the decline and ERCOT was asked whether they expect that to continue. ERCOT responded that there could be a multitude of factors that are driving this trend/change. They will discuss this question internally. One thing they did note was the implementation of RTC price floors, which could be a factor. There have not been any operational changes, so it is likely that this change is driven by market factors.

c.     There were not questions on any of the other reports:

                                               i.     Market Update October 2023 report

                                             ii.     Wind Power Forecast Monthly report

                                            iii.     IRR intra Hour Forecast Accuracy report

                                            iv.     October 2023 GREDP Summary report

3.     Review of Action Items

a.     The Chair walked through the status of open tracked items.

                                               i.     NPRR1105 – WMS is waiting for input from ROS. One of the issues is how to accurately quantify the amount of distribution voltage reduction between different TDSP practices. Therefore, it’s difficult to fairly quantify this in RDPA. The Vice Chair suggested reporting that back to WMS.

                                             ii.     NPRR1179 – A workshop was held in August. ERCOT worked with various parties and they filed comments, and intend to ask for a vote at WMS. Their changes address when a resource is RUC’d and buys fuel, but the unit trips. In this case, an attempt to sell the fuel should be made, but remaining fuel purchased should be part of the make-whole payment. Additionally, when a RUC’d unit submits a fuel dispute the approved heat rate will be used to calculate, however, the heat rate on file may not correspond to the potential output at the specific time. Instead, ERCOT wants to pay the invoice as long as the fuel quantity does not exceed 120% of ERCOT-calculated anticipated fuel burn.

4.     NPRR 1170 Status Update

a.     Joint comments have been filed since the last meeting by LCRA, NRG, Vistra, and Calpine. They are attempting to increase visibility into fuel supply disruptions by requiring gas generation to update COP in HSL if there are curtailments or force majeure that would cause a derate. Also, QSE’s will need to forward any related notices regarding expected fuel shortages from pipeline suppliers to ERCOT. ERCOT is accepting of these comments.

5.     NPRR 1190 Update

a.     Comments have been filed by Residential Consumers. These address that NOIE’s that have received the HDL override payment haven’t done anything wrong, However, Residential Consumers offered that their receipt of these payments was not consistent with the intent of the protocol language. The comments discuss the history of that previous revision that was meant to deal with a resource that was losing money under a specific scenario. Residential Consumers believe that price signals and SCED should be allowed to work and these HDL overrides are not appropriate. They offered language to clarify the types of contracts that should qualify for this relief.

b.     ERCOT responded that this change is not different from how they interpret this protocol, expect for the NOIE’s. However, ERCOT needs additional time to review this language, and how the requirement to specify the node where the resource is tied.

c.     Another stakeholder discussed an alternat option to qualify this language so that it is fair between an NOIE and competitive market participants. They want ERCOT to be able to compare the total load for the QSE to the total supply and see whether the HDL override causes the supply to be short, such that only that small part would be able to be recovered.

d.     The revision NPRR649 and PUC project number 41790 discuss the resource event in Odessa that drove the existing protocol language.

6.     Call for 2024 Leadership

a.     The former chair has changed rolls, so in the interim, before selection for next year, Colin Walcavich is acting Chair, and Bryan Sams will be acting Vice Chair.

b.     Election for leadership for next year is upcoming.

7.     Other Items

a.     Stakeholders asked for additional data regarding the transaction adjustment periods and bid limit questions, and when this issue will be discussed. Previously, there were some ERCOT presentations about point-to-point transactions and the associated delay, and a potential Lancium revision request regarding a PTP fee. This may be on the January agenda.

8.     Adjourn