Thread by @douglewinenergy

Starting now. After brief opening statement by Chair Schwertner. Sen @whitmire_john asks why do we have to incentivize power plants to do what they're supposed to? Sen Nichols says they're profit seeking companies and they won't invest unless they can make money.

https://twitter.com/douglewinenergy/status/1442842803030089728

Whitmire responds: are you talking about providing government subsidies for gas generation? Tells Nichols he's sounding like the Biden Administration. Not sure why we would throw incentives at thermal generation.

#txlege #txenergy

Whitmire says we've reshuffled boards and commissions but we may be worse off now in terms of energy reliability than we were in February.
#txlege

Sen @NathanForTexas says we need to redefine dispatchable. Just as solar needs the sun, natural gas plants need gas and if we don't weatherize gas supply, gas plants are just steel in the ground and they're not dispatchable.

#energytwitter #txlege

There was a discussion about market distortions from Chair Schwertner and Sen Nichols, referring to tax credits for renewables.

Important to not that oil and gas benefit mightily from favorable tax treatment and have for many decades.#txenergy
See here: volts.wtf/p/subsidies-re…

Chair Lake of the @PUCTX says ERCOT has procured ancillary services more aggressively than in the past, with a "margin of safety and an abundance of caution" and adjusts based on daily conditions.

I have yet to hear an estimate of what this costs...

#txlege

In his summary of PUC activity, Chair Lake emphasizes rulemaking on weatherization of power plants, as well as market redesign process. Talked a bit about proposal to lower high cap from $9,000MWh to $4,500MWh. Asked specifically about market redesign, says he's not sure yet...

Chair Lake says they're still taking input and working on a draft which will be out in late October. Says only thing he knows is that draft will get a lot wrong, and then they'll improve it.

#txlege #txenergy

Senator Nichols says we need to clearly define "dispatchable." Batteries can be dispatchable, he says, but not for very long. Perhaps @JesseJenkins and others can share studies on long duration energy storage with the Committee.
#energytwitter

See this thread for long-duration energy storage options. There are many

https://twitter.com/JesseJenkins/status/1435990715528466437?s=20

Sen @DonnaCampbellTX asks great questions about authority to require weatherization of gas supply. Asks if the @PUCTX can require the @txrrc to weatherize gas supply. Chair Lake says it's out of their jurisdiction. (cont)
#txenergy

@NERC_Official & @FERC noted gas supply needs to be weatherized in their recommendations. Railroad Commission's proposed rules allow for exemptions from any and all gas suppliers and transmission operators.

ferc.gov/media/february…

Sen @whitmire_john asks about interconnecting ERCOT to other grids. Is that part of the discussion?

One of the advantages to our own grid, says Chair Lake
"when something goes wrong, we can act quickly"

Note: #txlege required a study of interconnection in the budget

#txenergy

Sen @loiskolkhorst asks about the two phases of the weatherization process. First phase fixes problems from earlier this year. Second phase is an "operational standard," says Chair Lake.

#txenergy #txlege

Sen Kolkhorst continues, there are problems with wind and solar intermittency but wants to understand problems with thermal plants, particularly in June. Commends @PUCTX and the public with getting conservation n June. Just as conservation is part of water planning...

...and it needs to be part of energy, too. But she asks what are we doing to make sure thermal plants don't have outages like in June?

(she doesn't say this but a little more than 10GW of thermal was out in June)

Sen @DrSchwertner notes that ERCOT has no Board currently. Asks for an update from Brad Jones, interim CEO for @ERCOT_ISO who took over after last CEO Bill Magness.

Jones says he will be going on a listening tour this year. (cont)

Says he will live a Texas version of the Johnny Cash song ("I've Been Everywhere) to listen to questions of Texans and answer them.

I love that he's doing this. I think the PUC and RRC and TCEQ can and should do more of this.
#txlege #txenegy

Says @ERCOT_ISO has put forward plan to the @PUCTX to increase transmission in the Rio Grand Valley, a region underserved.

Both the Commission and ERCOT (and particularly Cmsr Cobos) deserve credit for moving quickly on this key issue.
#txlege #txenergy

Jones, ERCOT CEO, asked what is disptachable?

"Any resource that we can increase upon instruction, or decrease upon instruction. This is true for supply and for load. Load is also dispatchable. I'd include batteries, I'd include load that is reponsive and generation as well."

Jones (cont) Also have to consider how fast they respond, what is the duration of the resource. We have to nail those details down. But a resource that is responsive to ERCOT's instruction is dispatchable.
#txenergy #txlege

Sen @NathanForTexas asks: is it fair to describe ancillary services as a one-day capacity market?

Jones: that's fair.

Isn't it true that anything we do to increase reliability will decrease prices?

Actions of ERCOT will reduce market prices. (Cont)

#energytwitter #txenergy

Jones said that is why @PUCTX is engaged in market redesign efforts to balance reliability with compensation and incentives for generators.

Sen Johnson asks about @ERCOT_ISO's Roadmap to Improving Grid Reliability. notes there's an item to remove barriers to distributed generation and #demandresponse. Asks about that goal.

ercot.com/content/wcm/li…

Jones of @ERCOT_ISO says they are working by the end of the year to integrated distributed generation (like rooftop solar) into dispatch. Says they sped this up by several years. cc @DER_Task_Force

Johnsons asks about load management

Jones says this is about letting loads provide ancillary service needs. Mentions "non-spin reserves"

Johnson asks for an example.

Jones says they dispatched non-spin this weekend as reserves were declining. They brought a generator online over the weekend for cushion"

Jones continues: Load resources have not participated because we have not allowed them to do so, we are now opening those up to load resources that provide the same level of response.

This is an important improvement.

#demandresponse

Sen @Menendez4Texas asks about the costs of Reliability Unit Commitments (RUCs) and Jones estimates that over the summer they were about $40m per month. These costs are passed to consumers.

Menendez asks if #demandresponse can lower these costs. Jones says RUCs are cheap but they would rather have in-market solutions rather than out of market and he thinks #demandresponse could lower prices.
#energytwitter #txenergy

Sen @Menendez4Texas continues what was the weather sensitive demand on the even of the winter storm.

Jones doesn't know but Menendez says it was around 35GW. He asks Jones what drives that demand so high?

Answer: heating, mostly strip heating.

This is a huge point from Jones and Sen Menendez. Texas has the largest potential for #energyefficiency of all states. And the biggest potential is to replace strip heating with high efficiency #heatpumps.

Senator @Menendez4Texas also noted that in 2018, 29GW out of 66GW of demand (44% of peak) according to @ERCOT_ISO was weather sensitive (mostly heating).

Would be great if ERCOT would update this slide for February...
#txlege #txenergy

Sen @DonnaCampbellTX asks: What is the most dispatchable resource?

@ERCOT_ISO's Jones says the fastest are storage and load. Sometimes they're "too fast."

#txlege #txenergy

Campbell asks about #nuclear energy. There are two sites w/ about 5GW in Texas. One unit (about 25% of total) was out during February storm.

Jones says nuclear is not dispatchable. It runs all the time and doesn't respond to up or down signals
#txlege #txenergy

Sen @DonnaCampbellTX asks about #geothermal. Jones says there's very little but there's lots of potential.

cc: @TimMLatimer

@Menendez4Texas asked questions to @txrrc Director Wang about gas supply weatherization. He says #SB3 says if gas supply "is prepared to operate" than it must weatherize. Chair @DrSchwertner follows up asking if the Railroad Commission is letting too many off the hook..

The Chair notes that the proposed rule says that *everything* in criticial.... says does that mean nothing is critical? Can anyone opt out?

The basic answer is yes.

This discussion over the last 15-20 minutes is critical to ensuring we don't repeat February.

@DonnaCampbellTX says to Wang of @txrrc you're being convoluted. Have you addressed the problems from February or not? yes or no?

Wang: No.

He says we are standing up a department. Says we understand the urgency.

Campbell says "I don't think you do."

#txlege #txenergy

Sen Campball continues: why are you letting people opt out for $150?

Wang says that the process set up by SB3. Says it's a proposed rule and they're taking input.

Will the wellheads and pipes be ready for this winter?

Doesn't say no directly but basically says no.
#txlege

There is a loophole in SB3 which says only "facilities and entities that are prepared to operate during a weather emergency may be designated as a critical customer." All you have to do as an operator is say you aren't "prepared to operate" & you don't get required to weatherize.

@Menendez4Texas says if there's a loophole here, let us know because it's possible the Governor to add it to the call.

Chair Schwertner says "it's a loophole in his opinion."

Here it is:

Sen @loiskolkhorst says she's disturbed by this discussion. She's worried about market manipulation. If there's less supply, prices go up.

She looks at @PUCTX Chair and ERCOT CEO and says we're moving. But to @txrrc: "this is the achilles heel." Right now.
#txlege #txenergy

@whitmire_john says to @txrrc "you've unified this body. Your rulemaking proposal sucks Do we need the Railroad Commissioners over hear tomorrow?"

Says we may need to meet weekly or daily leading up to the winter. We don't like this opt out.

#txenergy #txlege

Whitmire continues: I'm not mincing words, I'm going to start naming Railroad Commissioner's names.

@txrrc, says @DrSchwertner got 100 new FTEs and new budget of $21m.

Asks if Wang knows how much @PUCTX got? He doesn't. It was $2m.

Campbell says if @txrrc doesn't prove your worth, maybe we move all this to the @PUCTX

Wow.
#txlege #txenergy

Both @Menendez4Texas and @loiskolkhorst raising questions about price gouging. Kolkhorst says you can't raise the price of a bottle of water during a natural disaster. We need to look at our energy systems to see if there is price gouging, if we need add'l protection
#txenergy

As they bring up new panel, Sen @Menendez4Texas says we need to look at conservation and #energyefficiency. Notes in San Antonio, they use similar amounts of water as they did in the 80s. Chair @DrSchwertner says they will look at that in a hearing before next session. #txlege