This Nodal Protocol Revision Request (NPRR) establishes rules for participation in Emergency Response Service (ERS) by Loads with demand response capability that is highly sensitive to weather conditions. It creates a new category of ERS Resource — ERS Weather-Sensitive Load — and provides for their participation in ERS under the following conditions:
· ERS Weather-Sensitive Loads would be eligible to participate as ERS Weather-Sensitive Loads only during ERS Time Periods that correlate to peak weather conditions (e.g., Business Hours 2 and Business Hours 3 during the June-September Standard Contract Term).
· Qualified Scheduling Entities (QSEs) representing ERS Weather-Sensitive Loads would be compensated for those Resources based solely on their performance during deployment events and during unannounced testing.
· Because ERCOT expects this category of Resource to consist primarily of aggregations of small customer Loads which may be subject to growth and/or churn, QSEs representing ERS Weather-Sensitive Loads would be allowed to adjust the population of their aggregations on a monthly basis during an ERS Standard Contract Term.
· The NPRR establishes a structure of payment reductions for QSEs to protect against over-stated offers or projected program growth.
· ERS Weather-Sensitive Loads would be subject to a maximum of eight deployment events of up to three hours per event during an ERS Contract Period. In addition, ERS Weather-Sensitive Loads are subject to up to eight ERCOT-administered unannounced tests per ERS Standard Contract Term.
Reason:
ERS is procured for four-month Contract Terms and requires participating Loads to meet availability and performance requirements for a fixed capacity obligation for the entire term. This has limited the ability of weather-sensitive Loads to offer their full potential and/or to meet event or test performance requirements during periods of mild weather. Consequently, ERS in its five-year history has attracted very little participation from weather-sensitive Loads.
Peak demand in the ERCOT Region, both in summer and winter, is driven by weather-sensitive Load, primarily residential and small commercial air conditioning in the summer and electric heat in winter. This NPRR is expected to make ERS more accessible for HVAC-driven Loads, in turn enhancing grid reliability by attracting more emergency demand response capacity to ERS.