Priority Power Management Files White Paper on ERCOT West Zone Congestion Solutions

Priority Power Management, LLC filed a white paper with the Public Utility Commission of Texas offering further proposals to address West Zone congestion in ERCOT.

Among other things, PPM recommends that the shadow price cap imposed on a constraint should "follow" that constraint. In other words, PPM seeks to allow shadow price caps under the holistic solution to be applied to new constraints that are created by network changes made to mitigate constraints that have already qualified for shadow price caps under the holistic solution.

For example, this change would allow the shadow price cap that has already been applied to the Odessa North irresolvable constraint to follow that constraint to the new location that is the result of system changes undertaken by ERCOT and Oncor.

Additionally, PPM requested that the Commission ask ERCOT, its Staff, and stakeholders to review whether transmission lines that have a, "purely local, radial, and distribution function, regardless of voltage," are properly removed from the SCED model.

PPM said that the current inclusion in the SCED model of locally-constrained 69 and 138 kV facilities that do not serve a robust transmission or wholesale function results in a significant number of constrained operating hours.

"Thus, the current congestion cost crisis in the West Zone is what occurs when local, radial, and essentially distribution facilities are included in the model for determining wholesale LMPs that reflect constraints in the robust transmission system," PPM said.

Link to PPM white paper (Docket 31600)

Separately, several House members of the West Texas Legislative Caucus, including Rep. Tom Craddick, asked the PUCT in a letter to continue to review solutions to the congestion.