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ERCOT CDR Shows Reserve Margins Exceeding 16% Through 2025

December 2, 2015

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Copyright 2010-15 EnergyChoiceMatters.com
Reporting by Karen Abbott • kabbott@energychoicematters.com

ERCOT's latest Capacity, Demand and Reserves (CDR) report shows that reserve margins are expected to exceed 15 percent through 2025.

ERCOT said that the rise in forecast reserve margin in future years is due primarily to the anticipated addition of more than 5,000 megawatts (MW) of new generation capacity by the summer of 2017 and another 4,300 MW the following year.

The December 2015 CDR anticipates reserve margins as follows (May 2015 CDR also shown for comparison):

CDR Reserve Margin
        May 2015    Dec. 2015
2016       17.0%        16.5%
2017       18.5%        20.7%
2018       21.4%        25.7%
2019       18.7%        22.9%
2020       17.1%        21.8%
2021       16.1%        21.1%
2022       14.6%        19.9%
2023       13.2%        18.8%
2024       11.8%        17.7%
2025       10.4%        16.6%

Link to December 2015 CDR

The increased reserve margins in the December 2015 CDR are forecast despite the anticipated peak demand for electricity -- forecast at more than 70,500 MW in summer 2016 and growing to nearly 78,000 MW by summer 2025 -- increasing from previous reports.

"We are seeing significant growth in planned resources to help meet growing electricity needs in the coming years," said ERCOT Director of System Planning Warren Lasher. "While we currently are seeing planning reserve margins top 20 percent in the next several years, some of this growth could be offset by unit retirements as changing environmental rules begin to take effect."

Of planned resources, about 6,250 MW have been added to the outlook since the previous report in early May, including nearly 1,600 MW of new natural gas-fired generation, 324 MW of storage, about 1,150 MW of utility-scale solar installations and almost 3,200 MW of new wind generation capacity. When adjusted for estimated summer peak availability, that new wind accounts for about 590 MW in the CDR.

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