ERCOT Abandons Congestion Plan, Pinpoints Key Texas Grid Weaknesses

ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas told his Board during a planning session this week that his agency will abandon a plan to relieve congestion on a key transmission line due to lack of customer response. Vegas said Tuesday that a planned conservation program has failed to attract significant commitments from big power consumers.

“The contract for capacity that was issued to support summer conditions resulted in a very low submission,” he told the ERCOT board. “It’s clear … we need to modify the approach for developing the next set of demand response capabilities in the ERCOT market.”

The issue at hand high-capacity transmission line designed to carry electricity generated by South Texas wind installations hundreds of miles north to the Dallas/Fort Worth market. During mid-day periods of high demand last summer, the line became congested with too much input, causing ERCOT to have to issue conservation warnings on as many as 11 days across August and September. The agency’s plan to address that issue was to solicit applications for voluntary conservation by major power users near the congestion point in South Texas for 500 MW of consumption, but the solicitation for bids attracted only three applications, all of which were for less than 10 MW.