ERCOT has set a target go-live date for its real-time co-optimization project, which is expected to add millions in savings to its market.
The Texas grid operator said Sept. 13 that it has set a Dec. 5, 2025, goal for the market change, about six months ahead of its original mid-2026 timeline.
Real-time co-optimization (RTC) is used by most other grid operators in North America. The market tool procures energy and ancillary services every five minutes, automating many processes that currently are managed manually. ERCOT currently procures ancillary services in the day-ahead market and typically does not move them between resources in the real-time market.
CEO Pablo Vegas said RTC’s implementation is “the most significant market enhancement” to ERCOT’s nodal design since its inception in 2010.
“The target go-live date represents an important milestone in ERCOT’s confidence for planning and tracking the completion of the RTC project for a more dynamic and efficient wholesale power market,” he said in a statement.
The ISO’s Independent Market Monitor in 2018 released a report that evaluated RTC’s effect on the market. Using 2017 as its simulated operating year, it found a $1.6 billion reduction in total energy costs; an $11.6 million reduction in production costs to serve load; a $257 million reduction in congestion costs; a $155 million reduction in AS costs; and reliability improvements due to a reduced overloading of transmission constraints and a decrease in regulation up.
Staff and stakeholders have been working on the RTC project since 2019, when the Public Utility Commission directed ERCOT to add the mechanism after the commission assessed its costs and benefits. (See “Real-time Co-optimization Go-live Date Could be Accelerated,” ERCOT Technical Advisory Committee Briefs: Aug. 28, 2024.)
The project has been expanded to address the growth of energy storage resources in ERCOT. Texas began 2024 with about 5,000 MW of energy storage online, second only to California. It is expected to add more than 6,000 MW this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
System testing will begin early next year. Market trials are planned to begin in May and run through November.
