ERCOT panel advances load visibility rule changes
Electric Reliability Council of Texas market participants may get a better idea of how load is performing and what load resources are available as a result of its Technical Advisory Committee actions on Thursday.
Among the nodal protocol revision requests approved by the committee Thursday was NPRR 797, which requires the creation of a new report and display of actual system load by forecast zone, similar to the existing report and display for actual system load that ERCOT produces for each weather zone.
ERCOT currently has five “forecast zones,” which include Houston, North, South, West and the entire system, but Texas has eight “weather zones,” which are:
–Coast, which includes Houston and the northern half of the Texas Gulf Coast, including areas served by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator;
–East, which includes a largely rural inland area north of Houston and some areas served by the Southwest Power Pool;
–Far West, which includes the Big Bend area, El Paso, Midland and Odessa and which includes areas that are not in the Western Interconnection;
–North, which includes counties along the Oklahoma state line and part of the Panhandle, including some areas in SPP;
–North Central, which includes the Dallas-Fort Worth area;
–South Central, which includes Austin and San Antonio;
–Southern, which includes the southern Gulf Coast and much of the lower Rio Grande Valley; and
–West, which includes the area between the Far West and the central and southern weather zones.
The committee approved NPRR 797 with a goal of having it completed in 2017. The ERCOT board of directors will take up the proposal at its December 13 meeting.
The committee also approved NPRR 801, which requires including load resources with a responsive reserve service responsibility in ERCOT’s physical responsive capability calculation, which is used in the formula for ERCOT’s Operating Reserve Demand Curve adder and ancillary service imbalance settlements.
