August 5, 2013
Texas Staff File Proposal to Allow Affiliate to Assume REP's Non-Volunteer POLR Obligation
Story edited at 11:27 a.m. ET to reflect the filing was a proposal for publication, not adoption. A filing this spring had been a strawman
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August 2, 2013
Centrica Exec's Comments Highlight How Capacity Market Would Put Independent Texas REPs Out of Business
Centrica's Chief Executive Sam Laidlaw demonstrated in an earnings presentation this week how introduction of a capacity market in Texas, which compels retail electric providers to provide payments to capacity owners, would destroy the Texas retail market, and leave only a handful of generation…
August 2, 2013
Direct Energy Now Sees Market Purchases, Not Generation Ownership, as Best Mechanism to Manage Texas Super-peaks, Weather Risk
Centrica, parent of Direct Energy, said during an earnings presentation this week that it now sees market products, along with its existing Texas generation ownership, as the preferred method of managing the pricing and load following risks of super-peaks in ERCOT, rather than owning additional…
July 31, 2013
Texas REPs: Administrative Pricing Imposing Costs on Us = Bad; Administrative Costs Imposed on Load = Good
Texas retail electric providers have surprisingly (or not so surprisingly when the parties involved are considered) filed harsh comments in opposition to an Operating Reserves Demand Curve (ORDC) in ERCOT.
July 31, 2013
Texas REP Source Power & Gas Launches Phase 1 of Smart Grid Strategy
Source Power & Gas LLC (SPG) has announced Phase 1 of its smart grid strategy, which consists of a series of pilot programs.
July 24, 2013
Analysis Shows Latest Operating Reserves Demand Curve Proposals Would Enhance ERCOT Resource Adequacy
Additional options for setting parameters of an operating reserves demand curve in ERCOT would enhance resource adequacy, even at a lower minimum contingency level, an analysis conducted by The Brattle Group showed.
July 22, 2013
PUCT's Anderson Offers Final Proposals for Operating Reserves Demand Curve
Texas Public Utility Commissioner Kenneth Anderson has offered two proposed alternatives for implementing an Operating Reserves Demand Curve in ERCOT.
July 19, 2013
Texas, With Energy-Only Market, Again Only State With Retail Choice in CNBC Top 10 States for Business (Capacity Market States Fare Poorly)
Texas, with its energy-only market, is again the only state with retail electric choice rated as attractive to businesses, this time in CNBC's 2013 update to America's Top States for Business, while capacity market states are ranked as among the most undesirable states for business.
July 17, 2013
ERCOT Board Defers Decision on Modifying Reserve Margin Target
The ERCOT board of directors deferred until September a decision to increase the target reserve margin to 16.1% from the current 13.75%.
July 16, 2013
Texas Senate Chair Warns Inflated Reserve Margin Target Skews Debate in Favor of Capacity Market
The Chair of the Texas Senate's Committee on Natural Resources has written a letter to ERCOT board members expressing "serious concern" on a recommendation from the Technical Advisory Committee to increase the ERCOT target reserve margin from 13.75% to 16.1%.
July 15, 2013
The Case for a Texas Capacity Market
Consider the following excerpts from an op-ed in favor of a Texas capacity market:
July 5, 2013
ERCOT Files NPRR to Implement Loads in SCED
ERCOT has formally submitted for approval Nodal Protocol Revision Request 555 , Load Resource Participation in Security-Constrained Economic Dispatch.
July 5, 2013
Texas to Proceed With Evaluation of REP Credit Requirements, POLR Rules, In Light of Higher Price Caps
The Public Utility Commission of Texas directed Staff to proceed with an evaluation of credit requirements for retail electric providers, and other issues, prompted by the increase in the ERCOT price cap, eventually to $9,000/MWh in 2015.
July 5, 2013
ERCOT Reports Short Payment due to Late Payment by Milagro Power Company (QSE), PSEG Energy Resources and Trade
ERCOT issued a market notice on July 3 stating that Qualified Scheduling Entities (QSEs) and Congestion Revenue Right Account Holders (CRRAHs) that are owed monies from ERCOT on Settlement Invoices due for payout on July 3, 2013, will notice that the amount of funds transferred is short of the…
July 3, 2013
Use of Incendiary Language in Pro-Capacity Market Op-Ed by NRG Leaves Open Flank to Attack Retail Choice
The use of incendiary language in a recent op-ed by NRG Energy in favor of a capacity market in Texas begs the question, that if we can't trust the market to assure resource adequacy, what else should we not "bet" on?
June 28, 2013
No Substantive Opposition to Operating Reserves Demand Curve Proposal, Except Fear It Might Foreclose Gravy Train
No substantive opposition to the B+ Operating Reserves Demand Curve was voiced yesterday during a Texas workshop on the subject, other than from supporters of alternative market designs who fear it might preclude the need for their preferred outcomes.
June 28, 2013
SHOCK: Texas Official Muses that Generators May Be Intentionally Underbidding to Keep Prices Down [to Manufacture Crisis?]
The continued lack of scarcity pricing in ERCOT, despite a host of pricing reforms and grid conditions which support scarcity, prompted Kenneth Anderson, Public Utility Commissioner of Texas, to muse whether generators were intentionally underbidding.
June 27, 2013
Texas Staff Suggest Modifying Capital Requirements for REP Certification Due to Higher Price Cap, Seek Guidance on Other Retail Market Impacts
Staff of the Public Utility Commission of Texas have sought guidance on moving forward with several projects to address retail market impacts from the higher system wide offer cap (SWOC), including potentially increasing the capital required of retail electric providers for certification.
June 26, 2013
Brattle Report Indicates Operating Reserve Demand Curve in ERCOT Can Achieve Resource Adequacy
An analysis filed by The Brattle Group indicates that an energy-only market with the version B+ proposal for an Operating Reserve Demand Curve can result in an equilibrium reserve margin in excess of the current minimum target.
June 25, 2013
Forbes Calls a Texas Capacity Market What It Is -- "More Regulation"
Credit to Christopher Helman of Forbes for calling a capacity what it is in a recent story on the Texas debate -- "a little more regulation."
June 21, 2013
Capacity Markets: Efficient As Buying a 40-Year Clunker
The ERCOT Independent Market Monitor has released the 2012 State of the Market Report, and the report spends considerable time defending capacity markets as "efficient."
June 21, 2013
TXU Launching Critical Peak Rebate Program
TXU Energy is now offering large commercial and industrial customers a voluntary critical peak rebate program.
June 20, 2013
Texas Chair Nelson Says Commission Won't Grant REP Certificates to Principals Violating Deceptive Trade or Consumer Protection Laws or Engaging in Fraud
Donna Nelson, Chair of the Public Utility Commission of Texas, requested in a memo in advance of today's open meeting that an order regarding a penalty settlement with a company which acted as a retail electric provider without a certificate should include language stating that the Commission will…
June 19, 2013
ERCOT Submits Macroeconomic Value of Lost Load Report
ERCOT has filed with the Public Utility Commission of Texas a Value of Lost Load (VOLL) study prepared by London Economics International LLC.
June 18, 2013
Texas Wants to Copy This? FERC to Hold Technical Conference on Capacity Markets
Listening to capacity market advocates in Texas, you'd expect that the centralized capacity markets in the eastern RTOs are "settled" market designs, which can easily be taken "off the shelf" and quickly applied to ERCOT, with little controversy or administrative bureaucracy.