ERCOT said last week continued growth in natural gas and renewable energy capacity will help it meet its projected summer peak this year — and demand well into the next decade.

According to its final summer Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy (SARA) released last week, ERCOT has 78,434 MW of generation capacity, more than enough to meet a projected peak demand of 70,588 MW. If reached, the projected peak would break last year’s record peak of 69,877 MW. While last year’s summer was only the 17th hottest on record, Texas’ economic growth has helped boost demand.

The available capacity includes 680 MW of new gas generation expected to begin operating before the peak, which generally occurs in August. Also available will be 410 MW of planned wind and 7 MW of planned grid-level solar capacity. The new capacity more than makes up for the loss of a 371-MW gas unit near Houston. ERCOT said Friday that NRG Texas Power had announced it would mothball the unit indefinitely effective June 27.

“Gas is one of our more efficient and economical generation sources at this time,” said Pete Warnken, ERCOT’s manager of resource adequacy.

ERCOT bases its summer forecast on weather patterns in June to September from the past 13 years. Senior meteorologist Chris Coleman said that while the region is transitioning away from El Niño weather patterns, “we could see some temporary, localized hot periods” in the Rio Grande Valley and West Texas.

The ISO also released its biannual Capacity, Demand and Reserves (CDR) report, a “snapshot” of existing and planned generation and load forecasts for the next 10 years. The report shows planning reserve margins ranging between 15.9% and 25.4%. The ISO has added almost 1,000 MW of new generation since September, but because much of it is renewable energy, it has a peak capacity contribution of about 250 MW.

The CDR report reveals a 1,700-MW drop in generation capacity since December, but based on current planning criteria, ERCOT projects nearly 6,200 MW of new gas-fired generation by summer 2018 and 7,400 MW in new capacity by 2020. Additional unit retirements are not reflected in the planning horizon.

The report also projects about 11,000 MW of planned wind generation by 2019, adding nearly 1,800 MW in expected capacity during summer-peak conditions.

Warren Lasher, ERCOT’s director of system planning, added a note of caution into the otherwise rosy predictions.

“This report also includes generation resources that could be affected by environmental regulations, and future decisions by resource owners may impact these projected planning reserve margins,” he said.

The report does not take into account the proposed 2019 integration of Lubbock Power & Light into the ERCOT system “due to uncertainty regarding the regulatory outcome.”

The Texas grid operator also released its preliminary fall SARA, covering October and November. That assessment foresees 82,737 MW available to meet a normal fall demand of 54,437 MW.

Staff, Stakeholders Discuss Market Outage Procedures

ERCOT staff conducted a market continuity workshop last week as a first step in addressing a “lack of market restart procedures.”

The ISO has black start, business continuity and crisis communication plans in place, but it lacks clear protocols or operating guide language to recover from a market outage, according to ERCOT. Staff has developed draft procedures to address gaps but has been tasked by the Technical Advisory Committee to gather stakeholder input.

The workshop focused primarily on how to best restart the real-time and day-ahead markets following an outage. Stakeholders also discussed how to handle credit policies, financial transactions and retail-transaction processing during interruptions and subsequent restoration periods.

Resmi Surendran, senior manager for wholesale market operations, said ERCOT has protocol language covering security constrained economic dispatch (SCED) or brief market failures. But staff wanted to provide more clarity to language governing more significant market downtime, she said.

“If we go for a month without a market, which is possible, what happens?” Surendran asked. “Will people be able to get their money? How do we pay the generators that must still run?”

ERCOT is proposing to start the real-time market first and then the day-ahead market. “Once we see the real-time market is stable … and we can model the topology and credit correctly, then we can start the day-ahead market,” Surendran said.

Staff will update the TAC in the near future and request guidance on next steps. Feedback and questions can be sent to Karen Farley.

ERCOT Moving to Internet Explorer 11

ERCOT is upgrading its browser to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 11. Staff says projects that use browser services will be updated to be compatible with IE 11. At the same time, ERCOT is ending its support for older versions of Internet Explorer and will no longer build projects that are backwards compatible to IE 8.

– Tom Kleckner