Commission Shortens Release of Generator Outage Data to 3 Days

Texas regulators last week directed ERCOT to waive its protocols and disclose generator outage information in three business days after an outage, rather than the standard 60 days.

The action comes after an unusual large number of forced outages led ERCOT to ask for weeklong customer conservation on June 14 to avoid another disaster similar to February’s. (See Generation Outages Force ERCOT Conservation Alert.)

In a memo filed before Thursday’s open meeting, Public Utility Commission Chair Peter Lake said the commission needs more transparency and information on forced outages and that the data should quickly be made available to the general public (51617).

“Recent events have made it clear that, when it comes to forced outages, the public deserves to know what generation units are unavailable, the amount of unavailable capacity, the cause of the outage and when the units are expected to return to service,” Lake wrote.

The commission, with newly sworn-in Lori Cobos joining Lake and Will McAdams, was unanimous in its decision as it tries to determine why the outages occurred. Was it the weather? Was it damage from February’s winter storm? Was it something else?

“Transparency is a means to send market signals to stakeholders, both private companies and the [municipalities] who have significant generating capabilities and are more than likely involved in the outages,” McAdams said. “It’s important to invest in your maintenance, to adequately perform maintenance, to rehab your facility to meet basic reliability parameters which are commonplace in the industry.”

The commission made the waiver effective June 1 to Sept. 30 to ensure that the forced outages earlier in the month are made available, along with additional outages through the summer. It gave ERCOT seven days from the PUC’s order to make the information available on its website.

Lake said he is asking for the generation units that are unavailable, the amount of unavailable capacity, the outage’s cause and when the units are expected to return to service. He said the PUC could work with staff on potentially adding company names.

Michele Richmond  executive director of Texas Competitive Power Advocates, a trade association that represents 70% of the state’s competitive generation — urged caution in what information ERCOT eventually releases.

“We need to accept that machines require maintenance. That is just a fact. We want generators to do that to gain maximum performance and extend the useful life of the plant,” she said. “Providing the info … in a shorter time frame doesn’t bring additional capacity online; it doesn’t enhance reliability. … We’re trying to understand the goal of doing so.”

Richmond said her trade group would work with the PUC and ERCOT in working to place the outage data in proper context.

“Without that, there’s the potential that information could be misleading to the public and lead to misinformed political discourse,” she said.

ERCOT said it was “fully onboard” with the PUC’s efforts to increase transparency and accountability.

“Our team is working on the best way to present the outage information as directed in a timely fashion and with the requested degree of detail,” spokesperson Leslie Sopko said in an email.

Sopko said that as of 2 p.m. Friday, ERCOT still had 10.98 GW of generation offline, much of it for mechanical failure or other issues. The grid operator had 12.2 GW of forced outages when it called for conservation measures on June 14.

ERCOT had more than 9 GW of operating reserves on hand Friday, she said, a result of a “more aggressive” approach to maintaining a larger minimum amount of reserves and ensuring it can meet demand during unexpected tight conditions.

Woody Rickerson, ERCOT vice president of grid planning and operations, said the grid operator classifies three different levels of outages: planned, 45 days in advance; forced, when something breaks or leaks; and maintenance-level, for pending outages to prevent a forced outage.

He told the commission that ERCOT has noticed a “bubble” of forced outages that stubbornly fails to dissipate.

“We’re seeing that at the end of the day, forced outages that were supposed to end are being extended another day. [The bubble] keeps moving one day to the next and the next,” Rickerson said.

Commission Nixes Gas Index Link

The PUC approved a rulemaking that revises ERCOT’s pricing mechanism by eliminating a provision that ties the low systemwide offer cap’s (LCAP) value to the natural gas price index and replaces it with a make-whole provision (51871).

Previously, the LCAP had been set daily to the higher of $2,000/MWh or 50 times the natural gas price index, as calculated by ERCOT. The revision eliminates the gas price index component and sets the LCAP at $2,000/MWh without an alternate calculation.

ERCOT will now be required to use existing settlement processes to reimburse generators for marginal costs above real-time revenues “during an event when the system-wide offer cap is set to the LCAP.”

Commission staff disagreed with stakeholders who said that a fuel index price multiplier supports reliability and market stability because it incentivizes a generation provider to lock in and control its fuel costs. Staff countered by pointing to three-figure gas prices during the February storm that contributed to the $9,000/MWh prices.

“Natural gas prices can vary significantly such that applying any multiplier could result in large swings in energy prices, as the events of February 2021 demonstrated,” staff said.

McAdams said tying the LCAP to the fuel index price “distorted” the scarcity pricing mechanism. “Addressing it now provides certainty. It keeps resources affordable, so we don’t have this perverse phenomenon in the future,” he said.

Commission Defers Action on Entergy DG

The commission declined to rule on an Entergy request to install distributed natural gas generation to provide backup power at customer facilities, saying they preferred to address these issues in a broader policymaking rulemaking rather than piecemeal analysis (51575).

McAdams filed a memo before the meeting saying existing PUC rules do not provide enough guidance to properly evaluate Entergy’s proposal.

“Ultimately, the questions surrounding distributed generation will have an industrywide impact,” he wrote. “A rulemaking would be a better forum to allow manufacturers and installers of backup power generators, batteries and other participants in the distributed generation space to be involved.”

Lake directed staff to add the issue to the PUC’s rulemaking calendar. Entergy withdrew its application on Friday.

The commission in 2018 rejected AEP Texas’ request to connect two West Texas battery storage facilities to the ERCOT grid. It opened a rulemaking on energy storage ownership (48023) before requesting state lawmakers clarify who will own the devices in the market. (See “Commission Welcomes Legislative Input on Energy Storage,” Texas PUC Briefs: Jan. 17, 2019.)

In other action, the commission approved Sam Houston Electric Cooperative’s application for a certificate of convenience and necessity for a 138-kV transmission line in East Texas. The 16.6-mile line will connect a new substation with an existing Entergy Texas transmission line (50485).

PUC to Open its Meetings

The PUC is ending COVID-19 restrictions and will open its open meetings to all stakeholders, effective July 15. The meetings were originally limited to staff only as the pandemic raged last year; witnesses were allowed into the hearing room only recently. Attendance will be limited to two representatives per company or institution.

“We’ve been out for 18 months or so. I believe it’s time to open these meetings back up,” Executive Director Thomas Gleeson said.