With New Generation Coming, ERCOT Confident Of Summer Reserves
July 7, 2014
As the dog days of summer begin to settle in, ERCOT is optimistic it will have the reserves necessary to handle a cooling season that’s expected to be milder than it has been in recent years.
Going into August, the grid operator said that it will have a 13 percent reserve margin – just under its target – but that the margin will increase to 15.2 percent once six new generating units become operational. The six units have a combined capacity of 2,153 MW.
ERCOT estimates that the margins will then stay above 14 percent in 2015 and 2016 before declining slightly, to 13.8 percent, in 2017.
The projections were included in the ISO’s final seasonal assessment of resource adequacy for summer and its latest Capacity, Demand and Reserves report.
But the sunny forecast came with some caveats from ERCOT officials.
“The outlook improves significantly by August, when we typically experience the highest system peaks of the year,” said ERCOT Director of System Planning Warren Lasher. “We may need to ask consumers to reduce electric use if we experience extremely hot weather or widespread unit outages during the early summer months.”
The grid operator expects about 68,000 MW of peak demand this summer, just under the record set on Aug. 3, 2011. Almost 74,000 MW of installed generation capacity is projected to be available.
Regarding anticipated summer temperatures, ERCOT Meteorologist Chris Coleman said, “We expect this summer, for most of the ERCOT region, to be milder than the past four years, with some areas experiencing temperatures that are hotter than normal.”
If those conditions do, in fact, hold – and assuming typical generation outages during periods of peak demand – reserves are expected to stay within the desired range.
ERCOT added that the drought conditions that continue to grip the state are not expected to create problems for generators during the summer.
The bulk of the new generating capacity – 2,112 MW – comes from four units:
- Panda Temple I in Bell County, a 1,200 MW combined cycle natural gas-powered facility;
- Panda Sherman in Grayson County, a 650 MW combined cycle natural gas-powered facility;
- Ferguson Replacement Project in Llano County, a 540 MW, combined-cycle power facility that replaces the now-shuttered 420 MW Thomas C. Ferguson Power Plant; and
- Deer Park Energy Center in Harris County, a 260 MW natural gas-powered facility
Additionally, an upgrade of the Forney power plant in Kaufman County and Rentech’s project to power its nitrogen fertilizer plant in Harris County will add 41 more MW.
ERCOT also expects more than 8,600 MW of wind to come online by 2017, which could improve reserve margins by 1 percent, Lasher said. Under current methods of estimating, wind now accounts for 8.7 percent of installed capacity.
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