Thread by @douglewinenergy

Interesting that ERCOT CEO Brad Jones, when asked if he can guarantee there will be no outages, says something like: I promise we have done everything possible to ensure the lights will stay on.

Hmmm, not quite the same thing...
#txlege #txenergy

https://twitter.com/GinaForAustin/status/1486507545254674432

@LWVTexas, hosting the ERCOT town hall asks about Jones' concerns with gas supply. He says he "is concerned" about weatherization and is specifically concerned about the 20-25% drop in gas supply on Jan. 2 during a recent cold snap.

ERCOT's Jones: "We don't get enough information about what's going on in the gas system... that lack of transparency is something we have to resolve." Wants to set up a gas desk in ERCOT ops room to advise about gas limitations. Not in place yet.
#txlege #txenergy #energytwitter

He's now talking about TERC, the Texas Energy Reliability Council, which he hopes will make recommendations to increase gas transparency.

Note TERC has not held a single public meeting.
#txlege

LWV's Carol Eckelkamp uses one of my favorite analogies: if you maintain your car perfectly, it won't run without gas. Did #txlege miss it on gas?

Jones; "the law didn't require weatherization to be done by this winter... @txrrc didn't move as fast as @PUCTX.
#txlege

Q: Are you more concerned with winter or summer going forward?

Jones: "Gosh that's tough... ERCOT has always been focused on the summer and I believe wrongly. That's where our highest demand is. Typically 75GW in summer, 65GW in winter." (cont)

Jones (cont): "We've not had outages in summer in Texas but we have several times now in winter. I believe we've been misplacing our focus. So now we're working to ensure on-site fuel."

[note: all quotes are very close but not exact]
#txlege #txenergy

Jones is asked if Austin has longer outages than other cities. Says he doesn't know but he says in Oncor service territory 60% of homes and businesses were on critical circuits. Made it nearly impossible to rotate.

I'd never heard that 60% number before. Wow. #txlege

Jones asked how people should prepare. Do Texans need a generator? He says from an economic perspective "it doesn't make sense." He says generators cost $10,000 so that would've been $2000/day during the outages so they don't make sense.

Jones is asked about #Bitcoin and says he's not worried about. Says we have enough generation to cover Bitcoin mining but adds it's a responsive load. They're data centers and huge consumers but unlike data centers, they have the ability to turn off in a fraction of a second.

Jones is asked about transmission connection to Eastern and Western Interconnect. Says it would be useful, especially the one under consideration right now to MS/AL called the Southern Cross project. Says it would be beneficial.
#energytwitter

@LWVTexas asks if there should be a market monitor for gas in Texas as there is for electricity in Texas. ERCOT CEO says, yes, should be similar structure on gas for electricity. Says FERC is looking into market manipulation but should be looked at in Texas, too
#txlege #txenergy

Eckelkamp from LWV says gas industry made billions: why not have some effort to understand if that was ill-gotten?

Jones says FERC can only look at interstate but RRC says there are limits to their authority. Someone should be looking at intrastate trades.
#energytwitter

@GinaForAustin asks about Demand Response. ERCOT's Jones says they've expanded Emergency Response Service. True but by $5m (they're spending $40-50m PER MONTH on backup gas plants) and they made it more likely ERS would get called so they'll procure less even while paying more.

Jones says residential is harder. Basically says there's no additional residential demand response.

Then he's asked about back up generation and microgrids (solar/storage or natural gas usually) at nursing homes and other critiical facilities... (Cont)

ERCOT's Jones says microgrids are increasing on the grid and absolutely can improve reliability. He says @HEB and other commercial entities are doing it.

Next question is about battery storage systems. Says we have 1300MW and heading quickly toward 5000MW.

He says batteries won't make it through a Uri-like event but can provide critical time period to get other generators back online.

LWV asks Jones should we get more storage?

He says yes, absolutely. We want it. ERCOT's Jones says we want more solar (cont.)
#energytwitter

He says we encourage solar in the market. We were at 3GW last summer, nearing 10GW now and will be at 21GW next summer. Phenomenal growth.

He says he was concerned if we'd have enough to meet ramping (as sun sets). ERCOT did a study and found batteries are a perfect solution

ERCOT's Jones says batteries can work but also fast moving generation and fast acting loads. He says we want lots of renewables and these resources can help effectively balance the variability.
#txlege #txenergy

Jones is asked about what would happen if we had a heat dome like over the Pacific NW last summer. Would we have enough?

He said we have a lot of solar and that would operate at a high level during a heat dome and believes they'll have 23-24% more power than needed this summer.

@GinaForAustin asks if ERCOT has a climate specialist on staff? Says we underpredicted demand for winter could we be underpredicting summer demand?

Jones says the weatherization passed by PUC so far was Phase 1, did not take into account climate change (cont.)
#txclimate

Says they worked with the climatologist ("I believe its a man" he says) to advise on Phase 2 weatherization. [It's John Nielsen Gammon @climatexas btw]

He says they will be working on this Phase 2 and, if I heard him right, completing it this spring.
#txlege #txenergy

@LWVTexas asks about staffing shortages of ERCOT and morale. Jones says morale at ERCOT is good. He says staffing shortage issue came up because PUC asked ERCOT for implementation timeline of a lot of changes. ERCOT said we can't implement one of the items until 2023.

Jones says PUC told them they need to get it done quicker and told them if they need more resources or contractors, they'll get them. The PUC told them, he said, every item is #1 on their list so now they're getting more staff and/or contractors.
#txlege

Eckelkamp from @LWVTexas says in closing that the Governor of Texas appoints the PUC Commissioners and Railroad Commissioners are elected. She encourages everyone to learn about the issues and vote. Primaries are coming up March 1. Go to lwvtexas.org for voters guides.