ERCOT sailed through its second stress test of its system’s winter readiness over the weekend, easily meeting demand that came within 10 GW of its peak during last February’s winter storm.

The season’s second cold front swept through the state Thursday and Friday, bringing with it freezing temperatures and wind chills that dropped to levels where they could have affected power plant operations. System demand peaked at 63.5 GW, less than last year’s record peak of 69.2 GW, set Feb. 14 before demand and the frigid temperatures overwhelmed the system.

ERCOT declined to comment, but it’s more conservative operations approach and winter readiness activities resulted in a 10- to 15-GW cushion between demand and capacity.

The grid operator issued an operating condition notice (OCN) ahead of last week’s expected “extreme cold weather.”

During the second day of a two-day training session Jan. 18, interim CEO Brad Jones assured the Board of Directors that the OCN is just an initial step in ERCOT’s emergency alert system and that he was confident the grid operator would manage the situation.

“It’s not a significant reliability challenge,” Jones said.

The OCN signified a need for additional resources. An OCN is still three levels away from an energy emergency alert.

ERCOT’s operations alert levels | ERCOT

 

Staff told the board ERCOT had about 79 GW of operating capacity to meet projected demand of about 61 GW at its peak Thursday night and Friday morning. Dan Woodfin, vice president of system operations, said the capacity was “significant” and a “little more” than the grid operator had at its disposal during a Jan. 2-3 cold snap. (See ERCOT, PUC Say Grid is Ready for Winter Weather.)

Woodfin said that about 11.8 GW of thermal resources are currently on outages, a normal amount for ERCOT.

That did little to comfort some of the directors, who heard much about the lack of transparency between Texas’ electric and natural gas systems. The loss of thermal fuel supplies, primarily natural gas, have been fingered as the primary reason for the widespread power outages during last February’s winter storm. (See FERC, NERC Release Final Texas Storm Report.)

The electric industry has added weatherization requirements with regulatory teeth for its power plants since then, but the gas industry, regulated by the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC), has lagged behind. The commission is not expected to mandate strict weatherization practices until next winter.

Asked if ERCOT would have enough gas supplies for the system’s plants, Jones said staff had already received one notice of a gas restriction that could affect up to 1.5 GW of capacity.

“One of the concerns we have is the great deal of information we don’t have,” Jones said of the gas side. He said he has plans to add a gas desk in the operations center that would monitor gas availability or restrictions, an idea that he said was first brought up in 2015 when he was ERCOT’s COO.

“We had concerns [in 2015 that] we wouldn’t get the information we needed,” he said. “We’re still in the same situation. There’s not a great deal of transparency around the operations of our natural gas system. That information doesn’t usually flow to us.”

Jones and Peter Lake, chair of the Public Utility Commission, both pointed to the Texas Energy Reliability Council (TERC) as where dialogue and coordination between the two industries takes place. Lake said the group was an informal group before the winter storm, but that legislation last year formalized TERC and “designed it specifically for that kind of information sharing.”

TERC meets as often as twice a month, Lake said. However, the meetings are not public.

Director John Swainson pressed Lake on the RRC’s regulatory responsibility. Lake declined to speak for that commission, saying, “They do oil and gas. They’re sitting across the table from us at TERC.”

“Doesn’t that look like sort of a weakness in the system here?” Swainson asked. “We’re trying to ensure our generators can provide power, but if no one’s providing gas to our power plants, that’s a weak link.”

“That’s why the legislature gave us TERC, and that’s why TERC is meeting more frequently,” Lake responded.

Pipeline company Kinder Morgan warned its customers that the severe cold could result in wellhead freeze-offs and lead to gas shortfalls. Energy Transfer, which made $2.4 billion during the storm last year, threatened to cut off supplies to Luminant over what it said was an unpaid $21.6 million penalty for buying too much gas and oversupplying their pipelines. The parties eventually reached an agreement after Luminant filed a complaint at the RRC.

ERCOT’s meteorologist expects another cold front to move through Texas on Tuesday, bringing with it frozen precipitation and light snow over West Texas and the Panhandle on Wednesday.

Staff also updated the board on their weatherization inspections at power plants and transmission facilities, saying they have inspected 324 generation resources and 22 transmission sites. This followed receipt of winter weather readiness reports from 850 generators and 54 transmission service providers. (See ERCOT Generators Near 100% Winter Readiness Compliance.)

David Kezell, ERCOT’s newly hired director of weatherization and inspection, said the inspections found 10 potential deficiencies at dispatchable generation sites, not at intermittent renewable resources, and six at transmission facilities. He said all of the deficiencies are being tracked and that most have been resolved and closed.

“I believe the system is in much better condition this year than it was last year,” Kezell said.

With Kezell’s organization still staffing up, ERCOT was forced to rely on contractors to handle most of the inspections. Staff that were pulled from other departments helped with the more than 3,600 hours of work during the fourth quarter.

ERCOT filed a report on its winter weather readiness inspections with the PUC on Jan. 18 (52786, 52787).

The board also agreed with staff’s recommendation to reschedule its Feb. 8 meeting to March 7-8. Its meeting schedule was set under its previous format, which was overhauled by the Texas legislature following last year’s storm. Several of the new directors had conflicts with the February date.