Thread by @douglewinenergy

Discussion this morning on local sources of power (aka distributed energy resources or DERs) at the @PUCTX. Cmsr McAdams has engaged w/ stakeholders on a pilot. He proposes a 3 step plan. First step set up an informal workshop on Monday July 11
#txlege #energytwitter 1/

In the 7/11 workshops, McAdams wants to consider key goals and objectives to be achieved in the pilot. Will consider scale, duration, participation, and reliability. Depending on feedback from stakeholders, Cmsrs McAdams and Glotfelty would summarize consensus in a memo (cont) 2/

... which will then be considered in open meeting July 14. Workshop is by invitaiton only. If members of the public or stakeholders want to participate they can reach out to Cmsr. McAdams staff leading the project.
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Step 2: Form a task force to discuss and observe the pilot and deal with obstacles that arise.
Step 3: The task force will help the Commission identify policy actions they need to take to overcome those obstacles. They will also set a target date or season for implementation. 4/

Cmsr Glotfelty notes that these DERs and aggregations of Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) can add reliability to the system. He says this pilot was brought up by one company (ahem @tesla) but the pilot is NOT about one company. Wants the pilot to be "broad and diverse".
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Cmsr McAdams has 32 entitites considered for inclusion for the workshop and/or task force but open to more. Also notes he would like for municipal utilties to come forward and participate to show the capabilities of DERs
cc: @cpsenergy @austinenergy
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Likely most of the companies to be included submitted comments filed in the DER docket (#51603) which can be found here. There were ~60 comments filed creating an important record for the @PUCTX and @ERCOT_ISO interchange.puc.texas.gov/search/filings…
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McAdams also wants to consider better interconnection processes for DGRs (distibuted generation resources)... these are ususally small power plants (typically gas, solar. or stroage) on the distribution grid.
#energytwitter

Cmsr McAdamds thinks this is important to consider along with the DER pilot and now invites a few witnesses incl. Liz Jones from @oncor. She says: a DGR must be exempt from load shed (i.e., rolling outages). Requires them to put the resource on a separate circuit.

Woody Rickerson from @ERCOT_ISO says some of these problems have been solved already allowing DGRs and DESRs (distributed energy storage resources) to interconnect and they want to work to remove any remaining barriers, whether with dedicated feeders/circuits or otherwise.

From the discussion, seems like the big interconnection problems for distirbuted resources are for those providing ancillary services, a large group of various services that are extremely valuable for reliability and for economic opportunties for generators and storage developers

Cmsr Cobos gives an update on the #RGV transmission project. This project alleviates 7 of the 16 GTCs (generic transmission constraints) in the state. There are three lines and all will be complete by 2026. Glotfelty mentions how important these are for resiliency.
#txlege