ERCOT Identifies Generating Units Which Experienced Outages, Derates During Grid Emergency

March 4, 2021

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Copyright 2010-21 EnergyChoiceMatters.com
Reporting by Paul Ring • ring@energychoicematters.com

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ERCOT has publicly identified those generators that experienced an outage or a reduction in available power during the ERCOT grid emergency

The list, provided to lawmakers, identifies each outage or derate of an ERCOT-registered Generation Resource or Energy Storage Resource that began at any point during the period of February 14-19, 2021.

See the list of generating units at these links:

PDF, with explanatory letter

Excel format

This information is based solely on details entered by the generator owners -- called "Resource Entities" -- into the ERCOT Outage Scheduler on or before 12:00 p.m. on February 20, 2021. Resource Entities are required to enter all outages that are two hours or longer into the Outage Scheduler. The data fields provided in the attached list include Resource Entity name, station and unit name, outage/derate start and end time, seasonal maximum megawatts (MW), available MW after the outage/derate began, MW reduction due to outage/derate, generator fuel type, and county.

Because the purpose of the list is to show which units experienced an outage that started during the period most impacted by the cold-weather emergency, the list does not include units totaling approximately 28,400 MW that were already outaged or derated as of February 14, 2021, some of which returned to service during the event.

ERCOT noted that the attached information is only one set of preliminary data about generator outages. This data was provided by Resource Entities to ERCOT during the relevant operating days and may not accurately reflect the operating state of each generator. ERCOT has issued requests for information (RFI) to develop a more comprehensive list of all Resource trips and derates and the reasons for each and has just begun to review this information.

While the vast majority of entities allowed ERCOT to share the data -- which is confidential for a period of time -- several generators did not allow public disclosure ahead of the expiration of confidentiality.

For those Resource Entities, the listed outage data includes only the start time and end time of the outage and does not include any information that could be used to identify the Resource Entity or the affected Resource.

ERCOT also provided a list of those Resource Entities not consenting to disclosure. ERCOT noted that the fact that a Resource Entity did not authorize public disclosure of its outage data does not necessarily mean that any of the Resource Entity’s generators experienced an outage or derate during the event.

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