ERCOT staff last week told Texas regulators it would change its outage procedures to avoid a repeat of conservation calls made twice this spring, when an inordinate amount of forced outages reduced supplies against unexpected rises in demand. (See Texans’ Conservation Keeps ERCOT Grid Stable.)
Staff proposed protocol changes for planned outages with more than 45 days’ notice, which are currently approved with the proper lead time. The requests would be approved or rejected depending on whether “the approved aggregate amount of all outages is less than an allowable capacity for each day of the request.”
Woody Rickerson, ERCOT’s vice president for grid planning and operations, said during the Public Utility Commission’s open meeting Thursday that the changes would also require updates to the grid operator’s outage scheduler software. That will require vendor changes, Rickerson said, and a vendor has yet to be hired.
Staff process about 26,000 outage requests a year, with 70% classified as forced or maintenance-level outages that are submitted with less than three days’ notice. Rickerson said most of those are automatically accepted, as forced outages are considered unavoidable.
Planned outages, about 10% of the total, are also automatically accepted under current protocols. The other 20% of outages are a mix of planned, extensions and maintenance-level outages.
In other action, the PUC formally revoked the retail electric provider certificates for Griddy Energy (51859) and GB Power (51961).
