To recommend approval of NPRR207 as amended by the 5/26/10 WMS comments as revised by TAC, to assign a priority of High for the grey-boxed portion, and to recommend that ERCOT incorporate the revisions to the ERCOT RUC desk procedure relating to NPRR207 proposed in the 6/24/10 NATF comments.
Seth Cochran and Tom Jackson, co-chairs, for the Quick Start Task Force (QSTF) on behalf of the Wholesale Market Subcommittee (WMS)
Urgent:
No
Sections:
2.1, 5.5.2, 5.7.2
Description:
This Nodal Protocol Revision Request (NPRR) would provide that ERCOT may deselect units from Reliability Unit Commitment (RUC) processes. The NPRR also creates the term "RUC Notification" to refer to an ERCOT instruction preceding a Resource’s startup time. The NPRR enables the Qualified Scheduling Entity (QSE) to self-commit, a Resource after receiving a RUC Notification but before the Resource’s startup time.
Reason:
RUC processes consider all remaining Operating Hours for a given Operating Day and issue RUC Dispatch Instructions to ensure reliability. To issue a unit commitment decision well in advance of a unit’s capabilities, however, ignores the unit’s unique operational flexibility and may lead to over-commitment of Generation Resources, increasing uplifted RUC costs. This NPRR would provide ERCOT with discretion to "deselect" units from all RUC processes.
In addition to creating ERCOT’s discretion to delay RUC instructions, the NPRR allows the QSE to self-commit the Resource, enabling market-based solutions to avoid uplifted RUC costs.