The Texas Reliability Entity’s director of reliability services said Thursday that wind and solar energy will be crucial if the state is to survive another brutal summer.
Mark Henry appeared buoyed by ERCOT’s 15.7% reserve margin, nearly double its 8.6% margin just two years ago, as he discussed the interconnection’s summer outlook with a “Talk with Texas RE” virtual audience.
“We look very good this summer, compared to the last two years, on paper. Practice has shown the paper can be realized in what we achieve,” Henry said, before interjecting a note of caution. “We can’t serve the expected peak without wind and solar contributing to that.”
He pointed out that conventional resources will account for almost 72 GW of capacity this summer, with wind, solar and battery resources being instrumental in covering the afternoon peaks. The hour ending at 5 p.m. remains ERCOT’s highest-risk hour for unserved energy, Henry said, with the likelihood of unserved energy being less than 0.2%.
In its 2021 Summer Reliability Assessment released Wednesday, NERC said Texas RE’s ERCOT footprint faces an elevated risk because of the potential for insufficient operating reserves during extreme conditions. (See Summer Bringing ‘Elevated Risk,’ NERC Warns.)
“That’s always a concern to us: Are we going to have enough generation to meet the peaks we’ll have in July and August? It’s always possible it might be a little hotter than we expect for a couple of days. After the events of the past year, there’s growing awareness we need to be even more prepared for situations that are not in the normal realm.”
ERCOT has projected it will have 86.9 GW of total resource capacity, enough to meet an expected peak demand of 77.1 GW this summer. That would be a new demand record, breaking the mark of 74.8 GW set in August 2019. (See ERCOT Resource Adequacy Hard Sell After Winter Storm.)
Thunderstorms and torrential rains have drenched much of the state this spring, lending hope that temperatures this summer will not be as high as they have been in years past. As Henry said ERCOT’s meteorologist told him, “‘Moisture on the ground tends to keep the temperatures down.’
“We’ve got to have our wind and solar at some level, and hopefully we’ll find they perform exceedingly well this summer. I think this a summer we can get through without too much difficulty,” Henry said.
ERCOT Tests Emergency Notification System
ERCOT tested its automated emergency notification system Wednesday evening as part of its “aggressive” pre-summer preparation activities.
Test messages were sent through the grid operator’s various communications channels, including its website and mobile app, Twitter, and email distribution lists. The test began at 7:05 p.m. and concluded at 7:25 p.m.
The grid operator said that during a potential grid event, it uses the automated notification system to send “timely communications” directly from the control room.
The first test message on Twitter drew mostly snarky responses.
ERCOT was criticized for unclear communications in February that didn’t prepare Texans for power outages that lasted for days. Lawmakers are working on legislation that would develop an alert system to be coordinated by the Texas Department of Public Safety. (See Legislative Response to Winter Storm Leaves Some Doubting.)
