PUCT Staff Proposed Modification to EILS Replacement Expands Eligibility

PUCT Staff have filed a draft proposal for publication concerning amendments to P.U.C. Substantive Rule 25.507, which would, among other things, expand the current Emergency Interruptible Load Service (EILS) program to include generation (39948).

The draft proposal follows an earlier proposal submitted by ERCOT for stakeholder comment (see 11/22).

One key different from the earlier ERCOT proposal is that under the Staff draft resources eligible to provide Emergency Response Service (ERS, formerly EILS) would include, "[d]ispatchable generation that is not registered with ERCOT as a generation resource, or a load or aggregation of loads contracted to provide ERS."

Under ERCOT's original draft, only distributed generation and load were eligible to provide ERS. In response to stakeholder comment, however, ERCOT agreed that there may be other resources beyond distributed generation that could provide ERS. Because only those generators not currently registered as generation resources with ERCOT would be allowed to provide this service, ERCOT said that it would expect to see no movement of traditional registered resources from SCED participation to ERS.

The draft proposal for publication also would eliminate the 1,000 MW ceiling per ERS contract period in order to allow the service to grow as necessary. This change would not affect the $50 million annual cap.

While the draft proposal for publication does remove the 10 minute requirement for deployment of ERS, this reflects a larger desire to maximize ERCOT's flexibility in creating the ERS product and obligations by eliminating specific requirements from the rule. By removing detail from the rule, with such details to be placed in the Protocols or Other Binding Documents, a new rulemaking will not be needed for any future changes.

Regarding the specific response time issue, ERCOT has said, "the current single standard response time for deployment removes any possibility of accommodating longer response times, which ERCOT and its stakeholders may prefer to do. On the other hand, specifying multiple response times would suggest an obligation to create products accommodating each of those specified response times, yet ERCOT may ultimately find reason that one or more of those response times may not be operationally suitable."

The Staff proposal for publication reflects the intent of the rule to provide ERCOT with flexibility in ERS administration by adding a purpose section holding that, "The purpose of this section is to promote reliability during energy emergencies through provisions that provide ERCOT flexibility in the implementation and administration of ERS."