ERCOT broke a three-month silence on social media Wednesday when it tweeted the release of its semiannual report that provides a 10-year forecast of its planning reserve margins.
It was the Texas grid operator’s first tweet since Sept. 13, when it said it was preparing for Tropical Storm Nicholas. The storm eventually made landfall in Texas the following day as a Category 1 hurricane, bringing heavy rainfall and storm surge before quickly falling apart quickly and dissipating on Sept. 18.
On Thursday, ERCOT also issued its first press release since Sept. 13, a sunny report that most of the generation and transmission facilities it had inspected in December were “ready” for the winter.
The burst of activity doesn’t necessarily mark ERCOT’s return to social media or sending out press releases. The Capacity, Demand and Reserves (CDR) report was dropped without the accompanying media briefing staff used to hold for both the CDR and the seasonal assessments of resource adequacy.
With the exception of the Sept. 13 notices, ERCOT’s external communications have all but dried up ever since a pair of ordinary conservation alerts in April and June spooked Texans scarred from the devastating February winter storm. A Dec. 8 press conference with Public Utility Commission Chair Peter Lake and interim ERCOT CEO Brad Jones ended abruptly before trade media calling in could ask questions, but not before Lake promised “the lights will stay on” this winter. (See Texas PUC Chair Lake: ‘The Lights Will Stay On’.)
ERCOT officials have said they are focused on “making the necessary changes to protect Texans against the next winter storm” in explaining the lengthy radio silence. Jones has put a public face on the grid operator with his Listening Tour of Texas. (See Jones Working to Restore Confidence in ERCOT.)
According to The Texas Tribune, Gov. Greg Abbott, who is up for re-election next year and is fighting off Republican primary challengers and dismal favorability numbers (with only 18% of Texas voters approving of how state leaders have handled the winter storm and its aftermath), has taken control of ERCOT’s public messaging since the storm. The Tribune said the grid operator needs approval from the governor’s office for most of its public communications, a report confirmed by people familiar with the directives coming from Abbott’s office.
Indeed, Abbott wasted no time in retweeting a Bloomberg story that picked up the winterization readiness press release. “Texas power plants have made the upgrades needed to protect against cold weather. … They are good to go,” he said.
Doug Lewin, Stoic Energy | New West Communications
“As has been a pattern lately, the communications with the public about issues of widespread concern is sorely lacking,” tweeted Doug Lewin, president of Stoic Energy and close observer of ERCOT and the PUC.
Lewin poked holes in both announcements. He complimented the inspection program for getting power plants ready for the winter, but he has frequently noted the weatherization standards won’t apply to natural gas facilities until 2023. Industry reports have been unanimous in blaming the gas industry’s failure to supply gas plants before and during the storm as being primarily responsible for the storm’s outages.
“If you can’t get fuel to it, that gas plant isn’t very useful during a cold snap,” Lewin said.
He said the latest CDR, which shows ample capacity for the grid well into the future, bases its projections on normal weather and not the freezing conditions of 2011 or 2021. He pointed out the report’s highest winter peak demand for the next five years is about 10% lower than it was under the storm’s conditions.
“To say we have enough power in normal weather is not helpful,” he said in another Twitter thread. “We should at least plan for a winter as bad as the last one. And why do we assume that we could never have a winter worse than 2021? If these reports don’t take into account extremes, they’re mostly useless.”
John Raymond Hanger, who once sat on the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, said he was shocked by ERCOT’s assumptions that demand won’t again reach what it did last February.
“February 2021 is now the historic winter peak within ERCOT,” he tweeted. “But in reliability planning, instead of meeting historic peak demand, ERCOT assumes such demand won’t happen during next five years. Wow!”
Inspections Find Generation Fleet ‘Ready’
ERCOT said that its system’s generation fleet and transmission companies are ready for winter weather following its on-site inspections of mandatory winterization efforts at 302 generating units and 22 transmission facilities.
In a status report filed with the PUC (52786), the grid operator said some generators had exceeded the commission’s new winterization requirements following the storm. (See “Weatherization Rule Published,” PUC Workshop Takes First Stab at Market Changes.)
ERCOT said only 10 generators, accounting for 2.1 GW (1.7% of the total fleet), had items requiring corrective measures on the day of their inspection. It said many of those items had since been completed and noted that all 10 units are still operational.
“Texans can be confident the electric generation fleet and the grid are winterized and ready to provide power,” Woody Rickerson, ERCOT vice president of grid planning and weatherization, said in a statement.
The inspections of transmission facilities found only six minor “deficiencies,” most of which have since been corrected. They focused on resources that accounted for 85% of the megawatt-hours lost during the storm. Staff plan to file a final report with the PUC on Jan. 18 for review and any potential enforcement action. Violators of the new weatherization rules face penalties of up to $1 million per day per violation. (See ERCOT Generators Near 100% Winter Readiness Compliance.)
ERCOT will conduct follow-up inspections on those generation and transmission facilities with potential identified issues. Staff and contractors have already spent more than 3,600 hours on inspection-related activities.
Final 2 Board Members Appointed
Peggy Heeg | University of Texas School of Law
The PUC said Wednesday it has filled the last two vacancies on ERCOT’s Board of Directors, completing a total makeover in the wake of the February storm.
The commission said a three-man board selected by the state’s political leadership had appointed Julie England and Peggy Heeg as ERCOT’s final two independent directors. They are also the only women on the board. A previous appointee, Elaine Mendoza, resigned in November over an apparent conflict of interest. (See Twitter Blows up over ERCOT Communications.)
England, a former senior executive with Texas Instruments, currently serves on the boards of TTM Technologies, a global technology solutions and printed circuit board fabrication company, and engineering and construction firm McMillen Jacobs Associates. She previously served as a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas from 1997 to 2003.
Julie England | Crunchbase
Heeg advised companies on energy, regulatory and corporate governance matters as an attorney before retiring. She also served on the Texas Lottery Commission and has been a director on numerous boards in the energy sector.
“This completely independent board marks a new era of reliability and accountability in ERCOT governance and leadership,” PUC Chair Lake said in a statement.
Legislation passed during the summer replaced the previous board’s five unaffiliated directors and eight market segment representatives with eight independent directors chosen by the selection committee. The ERCOT CEO, the PUC chair and the Texas Office of Public Utility Counsel’s CEO sit on the body as non-voting members.
