News Release
ERCOT NEWS: June Board Meeting Highlights
TOPICS:
BOARD APPROVES SIX MARKET RULES CHANGES
The Board of Directors for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, grid operator for most of the state, approved six market rules revisions at the June 16 board meeting.
The Protocol Revision Requests (PRR), and Nodal Protocol Revision Requests (NPRR), approved were:
- PRR 796: “Resource Plan Performance Metrics Revision;” aligns the resource performance metric scoring criteria with North American Electric Reliability Corporation Control Performance Standard 2 Scoring Criteria as prescribed in Section 6.10.6, Ancillary Service Deployment Performance Conditions; effective July 1.
- PRR 802: “Transmission Congestion Rights Transition to Congestion Revenue Rights Refund Revision;” revises Section 7.5.10 methodology, providing flexibility in the event monthly Transmission Congestion Rights are awarded and require refunds for the month after the nodal market go-live date; effective July 1.
- PRR 809: “Out of Merit Capacity Startup Costs Clarification and Modification;” modifies Section 6.8.2.2, Capacity and Minimum Energy Payments, to explicitly state the criteria currently used to determine eligibility for out of merit capacity startup costs, as well as clawback of startup costs; effective July 1.
- NPRR 141: “Transmission Service Provider Energy Storage for Reliability;” clarifies that metering of energy flows from transmission service provider-owned battery storage technology is not required for settlement; limited to the Presidio substation facilities.
- NPRR 172: “Synchronization of Section 15 with PRR 782, Clean-up and Corrections to Terminology and Transaction Timings in Protocol Section 15, Customer Registration;” synchronizes the nodal protocols with PRR 782.
- NPRR 173: “Reduce the Minimum Quantity for Ancillary Service Offers;” allows loads acting as resources with less than one megawatt (MW) that currently participate in the zonal ancillary service market to participate in the nodal ancillary service market.
MANAGEMENT TO ADDRESS POTENTIAL REVENUE SHORTFALL
CEO Bob Kahn announced that ERCOT is taking steps to address a projected year-end budget shortfall of approximately $5 million following a reduction in the annual energy usage forecast. Kahn told the board that he was taking this potential budget shortfall very seriously and committed to considering all options to balance the budget.
ERCOT’s revenue comes primarily from a fee assessed on wholesale energy transactions, which were forecast to be 319 million megawatt-hour (MWh) in the 2009 budget. The year-end projection was adjusted downward in May to 312 million MWh because of the economic slowdown. Kahn said there was also a budget impact due to more efficient hiring practices and fewer vacancies.
The ERCOT fee, which is approved by the Public Utility Commission in a manner similar to a regulated utility rate case, has been set at $0.42 per MWh for the last five years.
NODAL DIRECTOR REPORTS ON PROGRESS
Chief Technology Officer Mike Cleary presented an update on the nodal market implementation and reported that the issue with the credit management vendor has been resolved. The credit monitoring and management project was being operated out of Houston, but it has now been moved to ERCOT’s Taylor facility.
Cleary said the vendor contract re-negotiations are progressing, and he hopes to complete re-negotiations of existing vendor contracts by the end of June.
Six of 13 tracking milestones for May were completed. The first common data set was delivered June 1, enabling testing of business scenarios.
ANNUAL PLANNING REPORTS REVIEWED
Director of System Planning Dan Woodfin gave a presentation on ERCOT’s recently released Long-Term Peak Demand and Energy Forecast and Capacity, Demand and Reserves Report.
Other staff reports included:
Grid Operations and Planning Report
The Technical Advisory Committee report included a presentation on the stakeholder committee’s quarterly report to the Public Utility Commission and a draft of the Texas Renewables Integration Plan.
All board meeting documents are available at this link.
ERCOT 2008 ANNUAL REPORT AVAILABLE ONLINE
The 2008 ERCOT Annual Report is now available on line, along with the 2008 audited financial statements.
ERCOT is a membership-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation, governed by a board of directors and subject to oversight by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas Legislature. Its members include consumers, cooperatives, generators, power marketers, retail electric providers, investor-owned electric utilities, transmission and distribution providers and municipally owned electric utilities.
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