ERCOT’s Board of Directors last week approved a package of nearly three dozen revision requests that included the final work of two task forces developing policies and principles for energy storage resources (ESRs) and the real-time co-optimization (RTC) of energy and ancillary services.

Board Chair Craven Crowell called the work a “major milestone” in the development of ERCOT’s Passport Program, which is designed to allow emerging technologies to expand their participation in the market. Staff and stakeholders will spend the next four years aligning the task forces’ work with an upgrade of the Texas grid operator’s energy management system that also incorporates distribution generation resources (DGRs) into its systems.

“That’s a huge win for us, but work still needs to be done to button up some of the details,” chair of ERCOT’s RTC task force Matt Mereness said.

That work will begin in February during the board’s next meeting, when staff will begin updates on Passport’s schedule and status. ERCOT said it will have one of the world’s most sophisticated market designs when the program is completed in 2024.

“I look at what was done there as world class,” said Engie’s Bob Helton, who chairs the Technical Advisory Committee that oversaw the task forces. “I would really like to see other RTOs follow the same process.”

Staff and stakeholders have drafted more than 700 pages of new and/or revised protocols and market rules for ESRs, DGRs and RTC. Now that they are approved, they will be used to draft business requirements for implementation.

ERCOT CEO Bill Magness said Passport represents “the most major changes in our system we’ve seen in a number of years.” The program, which staff expect to cost as much as $55 billion, will touch nearly every single ISO system, as well as those stakeholders use to communicate with ERCOT.

“We are in a good position to start taking on the work in 2021,” Magness said, noting much of what has been accomplished was done with staff and stakeholders working remotely from their homes.

“This is unprecedented how well this has gone,” Public Utility Commission Chair DeAnn Walker said.

The PUC directed ERCOT to add RTC to its market in 2018. The market tool will award ancillary services every five minutes during the operating day, allowing the market to adjust to changing grid conditions. The commission recently opened a rulemaking to implement RTC in the market (51588).

Crowell, Walsh, Pfirrmann Honored

In a virtual sendoff, staff and stakeholders honored Crowell, his vice chair, Judy Walsh, and Karl Pfirrmann for their nine years of service together on the board.

The three unaffiliated directors joined the board in 2012 for the first of three three-year terms. Crowell and Walsh have held their leadership positions ever since; ERCOT bylaws require the chair and vice chair be unaffiliated directors. Pfirrmann chaired the Human Resources and Governance Committee.

“Well, I guess this day had to come,” Magness said in kicking off the honors. “In 2020, we talk about how we miss people, how we miss being in person. Some days, it’s just good to be in sweatpants and not drive anywhere. This really would be a good day to have handshakes and hugs available, to really send our friends off, but words are going to need to do today.”

Staff presented a video with words of praise for Crowell, Walsh and Pfirrmann from the PUC’s three regulators, previous PUC Chairs Donna Nelson and Pat Wood, and fellow directors. In his comments, Commissioner Arthur D’Andrea made the three honorary Texans for life “through the power invested in me” by the state’s Public Utility Regulatory Act. They will all receive state flags flown over the Capitol in recognition of their service and honorary resolutions from the Texas Senate Committee of Business and Commerce.

“I’ve looked at PURA before and I’m not sure [D’Andrea’s power] is in there, but Arthur knows the law, and I trust him,” Magness said.

“I will miss working with Judy and Karl. I’ve always felt a special bond with the two of them,” Crowell said. He thanked Nelson for encouraging him to apply for an ERCOT board position while he was still on the Texas Reliability Entity’s board and ERCOT staff for being some of brightest people in the industry.

Walsh recalled her time on the PUC with Wood, when they helped deregulate the Texas electric industry and usher in “the best wholesale and retail market anywhere.”

“Who would have believed two little ol’ regulators could or would do a thing like that,” Walsh said.

Pfirrmann, who is celebrating 50 years in the industry this month, harkened back to a time when televisions were black and white and Saturday mornings were reserved for “Sky King,” Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

“Google their names to figure it out,” he said, before referencing Rogers and Evans signature song, “Happy Trails to y’all.”

Members approved in a voice vote former Consolidated Edison CEO Craig Ivey’s nomination to the board’s last remaining open unaffiliated director’s slot. His name has been sent to the PUC for final approval. (See “Con Ed CEO Nominated to Board,” ERCOT Board of Directors Briefs: Oct. 13, 2020.)

“This usually takes a lot longer when we sit down to eat,” Magness said.

The commission in November approved the elections of Michigan Public Service Commissioner Sally Talberg, retired ISO-NE General Counsel Raymond Hepper, and incumbent Director Terry Bulger to the ERCOT board. (See Texas PUC Approves ERCOT Board Members.)

The board and its committees will nominate and elect their chairs and vice chairs during their February meetings.

Record Solar Generation Installed

Magness said ERCOT integrated a record 2,849 MW of utility-scale solar projects over the last 12 months, along with 4,777 MW of wind capacity, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The ISO also saw 14 days of more than 20 GW of wind energy on the system. It currently has more than 25 GW of installed wind capacity and 3.8 GW of installed solar capacity after having shed more than 5.6 GW of coal generation since 2014.

“There are a lot of changes in the resource mix,” Magness said during his CEO update.

ERCOT is on track to finish the year $28.5 million over budget, driven primarily by shortfalls in the administrative fee ($10.6 million) and interest expense ($15.7 million). The ISO’s expenditures are projected to be $2.6 million over budget.

“The [weather] forecast was about right. It was the [pandemic’s] economic forecast that brought [the administrative fee] down a little bit,” Magness said.

Directors Approve Opposed NPRRs

Helton celebrated the end of three years as TAC’s chair by bringing forward a pair of revision requests that he said were among the “most divisive” he has seen.

“So I’m going out on a high point,” he joked.

Both nodal protocol revision requests (NPRRs) received opposing votes during recent TAC meetings on their way to comfortable endorsements.

The board passed NPRR1055 by an 11-4 margin in a roll call vote, raising similar concerns as did TAC members over staff’s decision to sponsor the measure on behalf of non-opt-in entities (NOIEs). (See “REPs, NOIEs Debate Revision Change,” ERCOT Technical Advisory Committee Briefs: Nov. 18, 2020.)

Two unaffiliated directors and members representing the independent retail electric provider and independent power marketer segments voted against the change.

“This should have been sponsored by the NOIE community because this is an exception for them,” DC Energy’s Seth Cochran said.

The revision gives ERCOT the discretion to accept for good cause NOIEs’ late submissions that they own or control their generation resources serving as a source resource node, or that the resource has a contractual commitment for capacity and/or energy with the NOIE. The attestation allows the ISO to certify congestion-hedging instruments granted to NOIEs.

The change also requires ERCOT to post a market notice by Sept. 1 of each year, reminding NOIEs of the annual deadline.

“We were approached by some of the NOIEs who missed this deadline. … There were issues around timing being coincident with when people were moving to remote work,” Magness said. “We needed to ask the market to approve [NPRR1055] because we don’t have it in the protocols. We don’t think it harms our ability to get the work done in this very limited situation.”

The board approved NPRR945 with only one dissenting vote from Brazos Electric Power Cooperative’s Clifton Karnei. Representing the cooperative market, Karnie sided with fellow sector members that opposed the measure at TAC, saying it could shift transmission costs to entities that cannot shift their load. (See ERCOT Technical Advisory Committee Briefs: Oct. 28, 2020.)

The NPRR removes the “associated load” term that some proponents say has been interpreted in some instances to restrict net-metered private-service arrangements to the same entity that owns the load and generation. The revision requires that entities be behind the same interconnection point.

Board Confirms 2021 TAC Reps

The board confirmed the 2021 TAC representatives, which includes three new members along with 2021’s holdovers: Avangrid Renewables’ Thresa Allen in the independent generator segment; EDF Trading North America’s Kevin Bunch in the independent power marketers segment; and CenterPoint Energy’s Eric Easton in the investor-owned utilities segment.

TAC will choose its leadership when it meets again in January.

The directors also signed off on a pair of measures endorsed last month by TAC: ramp-rate restrictions for the Southern Cross DC tie to clarify ERCOT will curtail schedules when necessary to conform with the system’s ramp capability, and staff’s recommendation to change the methodologies used to compute non-spinning reserve and regulation reserve service in response to incoming solar generation’s additional variability and uncertainty. (See “New Interconnection Process for Sub-10-MW Generator,” ERCOT Technical Advisory Committee Briefs: Nov. 18, 2020.)

In other actions, the board:

• approved an adjunct membership for Solar Prime. A corporate member when 2020 began, the solar developer lost its status upon the sale of generation assets but expects to meet membership criteria early next year.
• accepted Schellman & Co.’s 2020 system and organization control audit with no testing exceptions.
• agreed with the Human Resource and Governance Committee’s recommendation to approve the 2021 ERCOT key performance indicators.

Consent Agenda Includes 32 Changes

The directors unanimously approved a consent agenda comprised of 20 NPRRs, a change to the Commercial Operations Market Guide (COPMGRR), three revisions to the Nodal Operating Guide (NOGRRs), an Other Binding Document (OBDRR) modification, four revisions to the Planning Guide (PGRRs), one system change request (SCR) and single changes to the Resource Registration Guide (RRGRR) and Verifiable Cost Manual (VCMRR):

• NPRR1001: clarifies that ERCOT will issue an “emergency notice” when it is operating in an “emergency condition,” but issuing an “operating condition notice,” “advisory” or “watch” does not mean that ERCOT is operating in an “emergency condition.”
• NPRR1007: updates the ERCOT system’s management activities in the protocols to address changes associated with RTC’s implementation.
• NPRR1008: updates day-ahead operations in the protocols to address changes associated with RTC’s implementation.
• NPRR1009: updates transmission security analysis and reliability unit commitment to address changes associated with RTC’s implementation.
• NPRR1010: updates the adjustment period and real-time operations in the protocols to address changes associated with RTC’s implementation.
• NPRR1011: updates performance monitoring in the protocols to address changes associated with RTC’s implementation.
• NPRR1012: updates settlement and billing in the protocols to address changes associated with RTC’s implementation.
• NPRR1013: updates the protected information provisions, definitions and acronyms, market participants’ registration and qualification, and market suspension and restart in the protocols to address changes associated with RTC’s implementation.
• NPRR1014: enables ESRs’ integration into the ERCOT core systems as a single-model resource, replacing the existing “combination model” paradigm where ESRs are treated as two resources — a generation resource and a controllable-load resource. This NPRR will be implemented simultaneously with other RTC-related changes and with the upgrade to the ERCOT EMS in 2024.
• NPRR1026: establishes rules for and enables self-limiting facilities’ integration into the ERCOT markets and core systems.
• NPRR1028: requires qualified scheduling entities to notify ERCOT of physical limitations on their resources’ starting ability that are not modeled in the reliability unit commitment software and excuses compliance with parts of RUC dispatch instructions that violate a notified resource’s physical limitations. The NPRR also establishes a requirement that ERCOT extend a RUC commitment to honor a resource’s minimum run-time limitation when a physical limitation delays its ability to reach its low sustained limit.
• NPRR1029: enables DC-coupled resources’ (defined as an ESR type required to follow all rules associated with ESRs in addition to meeting this change’s requirement) integration into ERCOT’s core systems. The NPRR applies to both the current combo model era and the future single model era.
• NPRR1031: requires ERCOT to post operations messages informing market participants when load is curtailed because of a transmission problem.
• NPRR1032: limits the DC tie schedules used in RUC optimization and settlements to the ties’ physical rating.
• NPRR1039: removes the defined term “market information system public area” from the protocols and replaces it with “ERCOT website.”
• NPRR1041: adjusts the expiration of the protected information status of wholesale storage load data from 180 days to 60 days, aligning the disclosure of real power consumption and metered generation output to 60 days after each operating day.
• NPRR1042: adjusts the planned capacity in the Capacity, Demand and Reserves report to remove previously mothballed or retired generation resources that may be repowered but do not have an owner that intends to operate them.
• NPRR1043: clarifies that ESRs’ withdrawn charging load (excluding auxiliary load) will be settled based on the nodal price similar to its injections, even if the ESR does not seek or cannot qualify for wholesale storage load (WSL) treatment by replacing the term “ESR load that is not WSL” with the defined term, “non-WSL ESR charging load.” The latter load will be priced at nodal but, unlike ESRs receiving WSL treatment, will be subject to applicable load ratio share-based charges.
• NPRR1046: removes additional uses of “dynamically scheduled resource” to align with NPRR1000.
• NPRR1047: consolidates gray-box language related to NPRR973 and NPRR1016.
• COPMGRR048: removes the defined term “market information system public area” in the protocols and replaces it with “ERCOT website” and removes references to the “ERCOT market information list.”
• NOGRR207: clarifies that ERCOT’s issuance of an “operating condition notice,” “advisory” or “watch” does not mean that ERCOT is operating in an emergency condition.
• NOGRR211: updates language related to supplemental ancillary service markets, ancillary service deployment and ancillary service responsibilities and obligations to address changes associated with RTC’s implementation.
• NOGRR217: removes the defined term “market information system public area” in the protocols and replaces it with “ERCOT website.”
• OBDRR020: updates the methodology for setting maximum shadow prices for network and power balance constraints to address changes associated with RTC’s implementation.
• PGRR081: describes how self-limiting facilities will be evaluated in the generation resource interconnection or change request process.
• PGRR082: extends the interconnection process to distribution-connected resources and settlement-only generators (SOGs) and clarifies the roles of ERCOT and transmission and/or distribution service providers.
• PGRR083: requires a Regional Planning Group (RPG) project number for projects submitted for RPG review and removes the specification of transmission project information tracking information from the Planning Guide.
• PGRR084: removes the defined term “market information system public area” in the protocols and replaces it with “ERCOT website.”
• RRGRR023: establishes provisions and requirements in the guide for ESRs that are identical to those already in place for generation resources and SOGs.
• SCR812: creates an Intermittent Renewable Generation Integration report similar to wind and solar power production integration reports.
• VCMRR030: removes the defined term “market information system public area” in the protocols and replaces it with “ERCOT website.”