Texas QSE Would Pay $30,000 To Resolve Alleged Failure To Update A/S Schedule For NSRS Deployed Unit

GDF Suez Energy Marketing NA, Inc. (GDF) would pay $30,000 under a settlement with Staff of the Public Utility Commission of Texas to resolve Staff's investigation of GDF for violation of 16 Texas Admin. Code (TAC) § 25.503(f)(2), concerning failure to adhere to Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) Protocols § 8.1.1.4.3(3)(a), related to non-spinning reserve service (NSRS) energy deployment criteria on August 8, 2015 and August 12, 2015.

Within twenty minutes of a deployment instruction, a Qualified Scheduled Entity (QSE) representing off-line generating units providing NSRS must update the telemetered Ancillary Service Schedule for Non-Spin for Generation Resources and Load Resources to zero, which indicates to ERCOT's Security-Constrained Economic Dispatch (SCED) that the resource is available to be deployed

On August 8, 2015, ERCOT issued NSRS deployment instructions for the generation resource TGF_TGFGT_1 (the Unit). The Unit had an issued NSRS obligation of 74 MW. The Unit was at the required generation output within the required 25 minutes of being requested by ERCOT. The real telemetered status of the Unit was telemetered to ERCOT every few seconds as required under the ERCOT Protocols.

According to the settlement, GDF failed to update the Ancillary Service Schedule for the Unit to zero within 20 minutes of receiving the deployment instruction on August 8, 2015. According to the settlement, GDF did not update the Ancillary Service Schedule for the Unit to zero until 1 hour and 40 seconds after receiving the deployment instruction (40 minutes and 40 seconds after it was required to have updated the Ancillary Service Schedule).

On August 12, 2015, ERCOT issued NSRS deployment instructions for the Unit. The Unit had an issued NSRS obligation of 74 MW. The Unit was at the required generation output within the required 25 minutes of being requested by ERCOT. The real telemetered status of the Unit was telemetered to ERCOT every few seconds as required under the ERCOT Protocols

The settlement states that GDF failed to update the Ancillary Service Schedule for the Unit within 20 minutes of receiving the deployment instruction on August 12, 2015. The settlement states that GDF did not update the Ancillary Service Schedule for the Unit to zero until 38 minutes and 10 seconds after receiving the deployment instruction (18 minutes and 10 seconds after it was required to have updated the Ancillary Service Schedule).

ERCOT cannot deploy NSRS unless the Ancillary Service Schedule is correctly updated.

The settlement states that GDF has corrected the errors that led to these violations and has successfully deployed NSRS since August 12, 2015.