ERCOT: Despite Political Gasconading, the Texas Electric Grid Will Hold This Summer

AUSTIN – The summer of 2022 is on track to be the hottest since 2011 and the operators of the Texas Electric grid say they have sufficient resources to keep the lights on all summer.  

Despite reports on this first day of summer from liberal reporters for medial outlets owned by Tegna, Nexstar and Gannett, which seem to be pushing a liberal agenda aimed at assisting democrats like Robert Francis O'Rourke, Mike Collier and the Democrat Party of Texas, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) reports there is plenty of power generation available for peak demand this summer.  

The ERCOT region is expected to have sufficient installed generating capacity to serve peak demands in the upcoming summer season, June - September 2022, under normal system conditions and most of the reserve capacity risk scenarios examined. This SARA report includes seven risk scenarios reflecting alternative assumptions for peak demand, unplanned thermal outages, and renewable generation output.

With continued economic growth across the state, ERCOT anticipates a summer 2022 peak demand of 77,317 MW, which accounts for load reductions based on an incremental rooftop solar capacity forecast. This would be a new system-wide peak demand record for the region.

ERCOT anticipates there will be 91,392 MW of resource capacity available during summer peak demand hours, which includes 473 MW of planned gas-fired, utility-scale solar and wind capacity. Additionally, ERCOT expects to have 2,035 MW of operational battery storage resources, which includes 283 MW of planned additions. While some of these battery storage resources may help meet customer demand, they are not currently included in ERCOT’s capacity contribution for summer because they are not expected to provide sustained capacity for meeting system peak loads.

A noteworthy development is that several operational generation resources are now classified as Private Use Network (PUN) generators. The aggregate installed capacity for these new PUN units is almost 1,700 MW.

The summer capacity planning reserve margin is forecasted at 22.8%, after accounting for forecasted customer demand, emergency demand reduction programs, typical unplanned outages, and typical renewable output.

Report Design Changes

Beginning with this SARA, ERCOT is including the installed capacity ratings of individual generating units, as well reporting the aggregate installed capacities of the various resource categories on the 'Forecasted Capacity' tab. Installed capacity ratings are based on the maximum power that a generating unit can produce during normal sustained operating conditions as specified by the equipment manufacture