Thread by @douglewinenergy

Press briefing from @PUCTX Chair Lake & ERCOT CEO Brad Jones starts at 10CT.

There is no mention of this press conference on ERCOT or PUCT websites or social channels. @KXAN_News will stream it from their facebook page.
#txlege #energytwitter #txenergy

facebook.com/KXANnews

https://twitter.com/KXAN_News/status/1468573615759233025

The last press release, tweet, and FB post from @ERCOT_ISO were each on three months ago. Doesn't inspire confidence about communications improvements in advance of winter weather.

ercot.com/news/releases

This press briefing has begun. I don't see it on KXAN website but you can watch here:

adminmonitor.com/tx/puct/press_…

Chair Lake starts w/ the lowering of the cap from $9000MWh to $5000MWh & coordination betw @txrrc and @PUCTX.

This coordination is really critical & deserves a lot of attention. The failure of coordination btw gas & electric was one of the major causes of the outages.
#txlege

The lowering of the cap is fine, but as the PUCT expands Operating Reserve Demand Curve (ORDC, a scarcity payment to generators) customers will give back any savings and probably more. Still, it is a big change and helps protect against extreme price spikes.
#txenergy

Lake also talks about the power plant weatherization rule which is now in effect (as of Dec 1).

First question: if you don't have gas for your truck, you can't run it. Will gas plants be able to get gas?

Lake says yes.

[But there's no winterization of gas supply yet though.]

@KoskionFOX7 asks if press can go along to see the inspections of power plants.

Question is not answered but ERCOT's Jones says they've hired in 12 individuals and they have hired two large firms for inspections too.

As I've said before, I think the @PUCTX weatherization rule is pretty good (it's, in their words, Phase 1 so there's more to be done). I think this is not the weak link. Improvements in this arena represent progress. No progress to reduce demand, little progress on gas supply.

Question about ERCOT Seasonal Asssessment of Resource Adequacy released the Fri. before Tgiving. Lake says those are just scenarios & don't reflect what will happen. Note those scenarios were mild compared to Feb 2021 & still showed shortfalls.
More here:

https://twitter.com/douglewinenergy/status/1462181620371316736?s=20

Lake is now talking about the Mapping Committee charged w/ figuring out which gas supply will be required to weatherized.

He's asked has gas supply been weatherized yet?

"It's in process"

#txlege #txenergy

There's a question about transmission. This has been an areas of progress for this Commission. Cmsr Cobos has led an effort to get more intrastate transmission built in S. Texas.

Still ways to go for connecting ERCOT to Eastern & Western grids. I haven't seen progress there yet.

Press conference abruptly ends 23 minutes after it began. Reporters will still trying to ask questions. One shouted out about water as Chairman leaves. The communications with the public still leave a lot to be desired at this point, to put it mildly...
#txlege #txenergy