Thread by @douglewinenergy

#ERCOT Board meeting today at 8:30CT. I'm particularly interested in discussions of Item 14 (on FERC/NERC winter storm report) & Item 18 on ancillary services.

Agenda & materials here. ercot.com/calendar/event…
Stream here ercot.com/committees/boa…
#txlege #txenergy

New board members are introduced: Bill Flores (former Congressman), Zin Smati and Bob Flexon (former energy executives), and John Swainson (former technology exec, most recently with Dell)
ercot.com/about/governan…
#txlege #txenergy

@ERCOT_ISO CEO Brad Jones makes an update, linked below. Lots of important material here incl. updates on securitization, weatherization, & the now famous Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy which projected shortages in similar conditions to last yr..
ercot.com/files/docs/202…

Jones says Fast Frequency Response (FFR) is not on target to go live in March 2022 but not sure how long the delay will be...

Ahead of schedule on distributed generation/distributed storage interconnection updates. There has been a moratorium on DG. Will be complete by March.

ERCOT's Jones gives update on Roadmap to Improving Grid Reliability. Says communications w/ market participants are better. OK but I'm still struck by lack of comms with public. No social posts in 3 months, nothing about Board mtg today, seems like public would be interested.

ERCOT CEO Jones provides update on securitization. There is $800m in short pays. Says those have been paid out already.

The larger pot of $2.1B will close in September.
#txenergy #txlege

On the SARA, Jones says there are outages in some scenarios but likelihood is <1%. Forecast reserve margin is almost exactly the same as last Feb w/ resources ~85GW. Reminder max pemak demand in the most extreme SARA scenario was lower than what actually happend in Feb. #txlege

Also worth noting, ERCOT CEO Jones shows schedule of upcoming listening tour. Really appreciate that he's doing this and wish @PUCTX and @txrrc would do this, too. The public is understandably wanting to understand these issues better and share their views, concerns, etc. #Txlege

Chair Foster asks what the Board should be thinking about in the SARA scenarios. Jones says the scenarios take into account high thermal outages, high demand, and low wind. If all those things happen, in those scenarios, there are outages.
#txlege #txenegy

Jones also says if there are outages, distribution utilities have better plans to manage it. If that happens "customers will not be out for significant periods of time." Chair Lake says this is not what we expect. It's "just arithmetic." These are only scenarios
#txlege #txenergy

Jones says ERCOT meteorologist expects 1-2 cold weather events this winter. Does not expect 2021 storm but 20% chance of 2011 style storm.

Cmsr McAdams says 2011 storm was much more about things breaking and PUC has required those to be fixed.

ercot.com/files/docs/202…

Jones' language is much more responsible than certain high profile others.
"Jones says he can't promise outages won't occur again, but says they should be managed much better. Power loss shouldn't be experienced for more than an hour at a time." #txlege
kristv.com/news/texas-new…

This is why I said in the @statesman a guarantee or promise or whatever is "absurd and not helpful." I would prefer clear eyed langauge like Jones'. The public is smarter than some folks give them credit for. Of course there's a chance of outages. #txlege
statesman.com/story/business…

I think people deserve for state leaders to level with them and say there's no way to fix *everything* since Feb but a lot has been fixed and should there be outages, they'll be shorter. Acknowledge what still needs to be addressed, urge folks to be prepared. #txlege

#ERCOT Board back from break and Item 14, Discussion on FERC, NERC Final Report on Feb 21 Cold Weather Outages is now up.
#txlege #txenergy
ferc.gov/news-events/ne…

@ERCOT_ISO is still in process to complete its own report on what happened in February and it will be posted publicly, says ERCOT VP Betty Day. Her presentation is here:
ercot.com/files/docs/202…

Key recommendations below. Note the presence of "natural gas infrastructure weatherization." This hasn't happened yet. Note that "winter reserve margin calculations should consider more extreme scenarios." ERCOT's SARA released recently had fairly mild scenarios. #txlege

Interesting ERCOT left off recommendations on demand response & energy efficiency. ERCOT could play a role in both of those, and already does for demand repsonse. Recommendations 18 & 19 below do not seem to be under consideration by ERCOT.
#energytwitter
ferc.gov/media/february…

ERCOT VP Day talking about PUC weatherization efforts, which I think are off to a good start. One part of the rule was each CEO had to attest anything that broke must be fixed. She said the responses to that are being filed today.

Note though that SB3 requires PUC work with the state climatologist to look at longer term trends of extreme weather. Arguably, Phase 2 is even more important that phase 1 if we're going to have a reliable grid going forward.
#txlege

A lot of content in slides 9-11 w/ activities at ERCOT to increase reliability. Cmsr Cobos cites the black start improvements and wants to know more. Me, too. This is one of the most important items. *Must* have reliable black start.
ercot.com/files/docs/202…

Cmsr McAdams asks about the NERC reliability assessment that showed that we would be short 37% if the weather was the same. Jones says they do not take into account the recent changes made by PUC & ERCOT. Board member Zin Smati asks if @NERC_Official would re-run analysis?

Had to step away for awhile and missed the presentation on ancillary services. More on this later, but this slide 👀 This is what is meant by "conservatively" operating the grid. They're spending a lot of $ on reserves.
#txlege #txenergy

ercot.com/files/docs/202…

Now a presentation on new transmission in the Valley. Great work by Cmsr Cobos to move this forward. Very important progress here and @PUCTX deserves credit for this. We need this project and more transmission. ERCOT Board approves the project.

ercot.com/files/docs/202…

Question from Board Member Carlos Aguilar about whether Bipartisan Infrastruture funds would be available for transmission. Cmsr McAdams says it does not directly pay for transmission.

I'm not sure...

@JesseJenkins- would BIF funds pay for transmission directly?
#energytwitter

Ok, looks like Cmsr McAdams is right. There is $ for a "Transmission Facilititation Program" which isn't direct funding for transmission projects. I believe there is transmission funding in #BuildBackBetter bill but that obviously hasn't passed.
energy.gov/articles/doe-f…