ERCOT CEO Bill Magness told the board that a newly formed task force will improve ERCOT’s response to the expected wave of battery energy storage resources.

The grid operator currently has 104 MW of installed storage capacity, adding 67 MW since 2016. Another 62 MW of storage is planned to be added in 2020.

“As big as the issue is getting and as many people are interested in coming in, we feel like we need to get a little ahead of it,” he said. “There can be lots of different answers to some of these questions and challenges, but we just need some answers so we can incorporate them into the systems and models and enable participation of this new resource in the market. We feel like we need to further develop the rules and protocols around this issue.”

ENGIE’s Bob Helton, chair of the TAC, said the task force will benefit both the storage companies and the ERCOT market.

“They don’t have the bandwidth to go to three, four or five stakeholder meetings to get what they need and to inject what we need,” he said. “We need those people to tell us what they’ve seen and take advantage of their experience.”

The team, which doesn’t meet until Oct. 18, will be structured similarly to the Real-Time Co-optimization Task Force (RTCTF). It will be chaired by ERCOT’s Sandip Sharma, with a members’ representative to be selected during the first meeting.

The group will focus first on modifications to how energy storage is modeled and used on the system. Staff said the changes will make different storage configurations “more palatable” before a permanent fix is brought for approval by the end of 2020.

The BESTF’s work will be timed to coincide with that of the co-optimization group, which is working on a three-year timeline. The task forces’ design changes will be part of a major system upgrade in 2024.

Taylor, Spak OK’d as Vice Presidents

The board ratified the promotions of Sean Taylor to vice president and CFO and Mara Spak to vice president of human resources.

Taylor, who has served as controller since joining ERCOT in 2013, replaces Mike Petterson, who announced his retirement after 18 years with the grid operator. Petterson will be honored during ERCOT’s annual meeting in December, but not before participating in an ironman competition in Argentina.

Spak has four years with ERCOT and almost two decades of HR experience.

Board Approves Southern Cross Directive, 22 Changes

The board approved the latest directive for the Southern Cross Transmission DC tie-line, a proposed Pattern Development HVDC transmission project in East Texas that would ship more than 2 GW of energy between the Texas grid and Southeastern markets.

The directive requires ERCOT to develop and implement a methodology “to reliably and cost-effectively coordinate outages” once the DC tie is interconnected.

As part of its market oversight, the PUC approved the project but issued 14 directives to ERCOT, requiring that certain studies and determinations be made to accommodate Southern Cross. The project is expected to be energized in 2023 (46304).

The board unanimously approved 15 Nodal Protocol revision requests (NPRRs), two changes to the Nodal Operating Guide (NOGRR), a single revision to the Planning Guide (PGRR), two system-change requests (SCRs), a change to the Settlement Metering Operating Guide (SMOGRR) and a Verifiable Cost Manual update (VCMRR):

• • NPRR918: Clarifies and updates hourly validation rules for the non-opt-in entity load forecast related to the submission of point-to-point obligations.
  • NPRR930: Requires staff to use an outage-adjustment evaluation process to delay accepted or approved outages after issuing an advance action notice, providing time for qualified scheduling entities to adjust their outage plans. The NPRR sets an offer floor of $4,500/MWh to make resources whole after following ERCOT’s instructions.
  • NPRR936: Changes the congestion revenue rights auction transaction limit from that of the CRR account holder to the counterparty level.
  • NPRR939: Replaces ERCOT’s practice dividing load resources — other than controllable resources providing responsive reserve service (RRS) — into two groups. Those resources would instead be divided into small groups of 500 MW each to allow a smaller manual deployment of RRS to help them meet their ancillary service responsibility toward physical responsive capability.
  • NPRR940: Removes from the protocols NPRR664’s gray-boxed language that introduces a fuel index price for resources.
  • NPRR948: Incorporates changes in the American National Standards Institute standards; increases the test schedule for coupling capacity voltage transformers tested in the last quarter of a year and removes references to fiber-optic current transformers.
  • NPRR950: Prohibits any switchable generation resource contracted to provide black start service from generating in any control area other than ERCOT.
  • NPRR951: Expands the network security analysis active constraints report and the network security analysis inactive constraints report to include megavolt-ampere flows and limits.
  • NPRR952: Fully replaces the Houston Ship Channel with Katy Hub as the reference for the natural gas fuel index price in ERCOT systems.
  • NPRR954: Allows transmission and distribution service providers or load-serving entities to opt out of Texas standard electronic transaction 867 data for electric service identifiers with ERCOT-polled settlement meters.
  • NPRR958: Modifies and better aligns the wind and solar capacity calculations used in ERCOT’s Capacity, Demand and Reserves (CDR) report.
  • NPRR959: Splits the CDR’s existing non-coastal wind region into a Panhandle region and an “other” region.
  • NPRR960: Revises NPRR863’s gray-boxed language to implement the board-approved phasing approach for the NPRR. Also corrects resource status references within the gray-boxed language.
  • NPRR961: Aligns the protocols with changes proposed in NOGRR194.
  • NPRR962: Requires hourly publication of the approved DC tie schedule for the following seven days.
  • NOGRR191: Paired with NPRR939, allows ERCOT to manually deploy load resources providing RRS to maintain at least 500 MW of physical responsive capability reserves while maintaining stable grid frequency for smaller disturbances.
  • NOGRR194: Clarifies and relocates to the Nodal Operating Guide black start training attendance requirements, originally located in the Nodal Protocols.
  • PGRR072: Allows staff to collaborate with stakeholders in setting a resource not yet subject to a notification of suspension of operations to “out of service” in the regional transmission plan and geomagnetic disturbance vulnerability assessment base cases, provided the resource’s entity notifies ERCOT of its intent to retire or mothball the resource or makes its intent public.
  • SCR803: Adds to the wind-integration report a new graphical dashboard showing actual and forecasted solar production and creates new solar-integration reports.
  • SCR804: Gives transmission operators access to ERCOT’s GridGeo application, a browser-based tool that replaces the Macomber Map and gives better situational awareness of the ISO’s transmission grid.
  • SMOGRR022: Removes from the guide references to fiber-optic instrument transformers.
  • VCMRR023: Aligns the manual’s language with NPRR940’s removal of gray-boxed language.

— Tom Kleckner