ERCOT’s board recently approved a staff proposal that gives ERCOT full control over outage requests, drawing a rebuke from energy consultant Neil McAndrews.
McAndrews, an Austin, Texas-based energy market consultant, was "not surprised" by the board's support for the ERCOT staff proposal, which he said, "will cost more and lower reliability by increasing forced outages."
"A small understanding of the issues often results in a poor outcome," McAndrews said in an April 29 email. "The ERCOT BOD did not understand that the command-and-control limits proposed by ERCOT fly in the face of aging generation units with increasing failure rates. They voted for limiting planned outages to some abstract number that is theoretical and not based on the risk in the supply of generation. … Government intervention at its most meddlesome."
The ERCOT Board of Directors voted to approve NPRR 1108, "ERCOT Shall Approve or Deny All Resource Outage Requests," despite opposition from stakeholders.
Previously, generation outage requests submitted within 45 days or less of the actual outage required ERCOT approval. NPRR 1108 will now require all requests to be approved regardless of timeline, making planned outages more restrictive.
With summer heat knocking at the door, ERCOT had released a statement to 25 News stating that it expects "sufficient generation to meet forecasted demand." However, University of Houston Energy Fellow Ed Hirs said he is not convinced because the grid operator undercounts the total number of consumers in the state. "Since 2010, the Texas economy has grown from 1.25 trillion to 1.99 trillion last year," Hirs said. "The amount of natural gas, coal, and nuclear generation on the ERCOT grid has actually shrunk during that time."