Print đź–¨

The Public Utility Commission met on April 11 to take up a number of items. The commission discussed a number of items including decisions related to FERC, ERCOT proposed protocols, the PCM, the Texas Energy Fund Completion Bonus Grant Program, and the Permian Basin Reliability Plan, among others. An archive can be found here. The full agenda can be found here.

 

This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight the various topics taken up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the discussions but is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer.

 

Items to be taken up without discussion: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 17, 18, 20, and 21

 

Opening Comments

  • Chair Gleeson – The committee is going to meet in executive session
  • The committee returns from closed session
  • Motion to authorize the PUC’s outside FERC council to file a protest in FERC docket ER241499 to recommend rejection of the proposal or to be made subject to the outcome of FERC’s decision concerning the justness/reasonableness of the proposed three step methodology for allocating net operating loss carry forward, OLC, and NOLC accumulated deferred income taxes under the MSS4R tariff
    • Motion adopted
  • Motion to increase commission counsel salary to $226k per year effective today
    • Motion adopted

 

Item 1: Docket No. 49925; SOAH Docket No. 473-20-1772.WS – Complaint of Michelle Andersson Against La Bella Palms 117, LLC and La Bella Palms Apartments. (Final Order)

  • SOA decision before the commission; Gleeson filed a memo on this item
  • Cobos and Jackson – Agree with your position in your memo
  • Move to adopt the order in accordance with Gleeson’s memo
    • Motion adopted

 

Item 2: Docket No. 53734 – Petition of Treasure Island to Amend Mustang Special Utility District’s Certificate of Convenience and Necessity by Decertifying a Portion of the Service Area under Texas Water Code § 13.254(a)(1) and 16 Texas Administrative Code § 24.245(d)(1)(A) in Grayson County. (Discussion and possible action, including order on briefing issues)

  • Briefing order filed concerning legal threshold issues
  • Gleeson filed the order in February
  • Commissioners agree with the position in Gleeson’s memo
  • Motion to adopt order consistent with Gleeson’s memo
    • Motion adopted

 

Item 3: Docket No. 53815; SOAH Docket No. 473-23-12116.WS – Application of Corix Utilities (Texas) Inc. for Authority to Change Rates. (Final Order)

  • SOA decision before the commission; are filed exceptions to the PFD; final number run recommended to be done before final
  • Oral comment was requested and was denied
  • Gleeson – ALJ got it right on this
  • Cobos – Agree
  • Motion to run a final number run and to bring this order back with corrections at a future meeting
    • Motion adopted

 

Item 4: Docket No. 54806 – Petition of G&W Water Supply Corporation for a Cease and Desist Order Against City of Navasota. (Preliminary Order)

  • Consented

 

Item 5: Docket No. 55161 – Application of Lake Ridge Water System, LP for Authority to Change Rates. (Preliminary Order)

  • Consented

 

Item 6: Docket No. 55577 – Application of Aqua Texas, Inc. to Amend Its System Improvement Charges under 16 TAC § 24.76. (Preliminary Order)

  • Consented

 

Item 7: Docket No. 55622 – Carl and Stacey Terry’s Appeal of the Cost of Obtaining Service from Woden Water Supply Corporation. (Preliminary Order)

  • Consented

 

Item 8: Docket No. 55853 – Complaint of Jesse M. McGraw Against Davis Bayou Service Operated by Texas Community Management. (Preliminary Order)

  • Consented

 

Item 9: Docket No. 55989 – Complaint of Brandon L. Dunn Against Estate Villas at Krum Apartments. (Preliminary Order)

  • Consented

 

Item 10: Docket No. 52728; SOAH Docket No. 473-22-2464 – Application of the City of College Station to Change Rates for Wholesale Transmission Service. (Final Order)

  • Consented

 

Item 11: Docket No. 54634; SOAH Docket No. 473-23-14020 – Application of Southwestern Public Service Company for Authority to Change Rates. (Final Order)

  • Revised proposed order before the commission unopposed agreement in the parties in this proceeding; Glotfelty filed a memo on this
  • Glotfelty – Do not file memos often; is a black box settlement; have pros and cons as information is withheld from us
  • Gleeson – Understand the sentiment; encourage settlements and they do not exist without black box provisions
  • Glotfelty – Do not need to modify the order consistent with my memo; this has been litigated; the largest wildfire in history has affected this system
  • Glotfelty – The people in this service territory need to be recognized; will have discussions with them in the future in a different docket
  • Motion to approve the revised order
    • Motion adopted

 

Item 12: Docket No. 54929; SOAH Docket No. 473-23-24883 – Application of El Paso Electric Company to Amend Its Certificate of Convenience and Necessity for a 150 MW Solar Facility. (Final Order)

  • Revised proposed order; unanimous agreement among the parties in this proceeding
  • Gleeson and Jackson – Consented on this item
  • Cobos – Agree and consent, but El Paso needs to ensure they are adding generation to maintain reliability for the future; need to replace retiring generation with dispatchable as well
  • Glotfelty – The company you contracted with to build these facilities, are they an affiliate of you?
    • Casey Bell, El Paso Electric – No
  • Motion to approve the proposed order and amend the CCN
    • Motion adopted

 

Item 13: Docket No. 55114; SOAH Docket No. 473-22-21357 – Application of Texas-New Mexico Power Company to Amend Its Certificate of Convenience and Necessity for the Pilot Point 138-kV Transmission Line Project in Collin, Grayson, and Denton Counties. (Order on Rehearing)

  • Commission filed an order in February; was a motion for re-hearing that was requested
  • Gleeson – Prepared to grant rehearing for a limited purpose
  • Cobos – Agree; rehearing for point of error 4 to ensure all landowners consent – particularly Sparkling Ranch
  • Glotfelty – Needs to be accepted into the record if they file consent from the landowner
  • PUC Staff – Recommend this is remanded to docket management for addition of evidence
  • Motion for rehearing to get consent from that entity; deadline April 22 so we can consider at the May hearing
    • Motion adopted

 

Item 14 : Docket No. 55221 – Settlement Agreement and Report to the Commission Regarding City of San Augustine’s Violations of PURA § 38.102(e) and 16 TAC § 25.97(f)(2), Relating to Line Inspection and Safety Annual Reporting. (Final Order)

  • Consented

 

Item 15: Docket No. 55563; SOAH Docket No. 473-24-02687 – Application of South Texas Electric Cooperative, Inc. to Amend Its Certificate of Convenience and Necessity for the Hondo Creek-to-Pearson 69-kV Transmission Line Rebuild and Upgrade in Medina County. (Final Order)

  • SOA decision before you; filed exceptions to the PFD; ALJ denied
  • Gleeson – Agree with the ALJ with one exception
  • Cobos and Jackson – Agree
  • Glotfelty – Is reconductoring right of way – widening it; concerning exclusions for landowners, need to think about this legislatively in the future

 

Item 16: Docket No. 55728; SOAH Docket No. 473-24-04701 – Application of the City of San Antonio, Acting By and Through the City Public Service Board (CPS Energy), to Amend Its Certificate of Convenience and Necessity for the Proposed SAT15 138-kV Transmission Line in Bexar County. (Final Order)

  • Proposed order is the unanimous agreement among the parties; support route along Route S
  • Gleeson – This is a unanimous agreement, do not think we should overturn that; did not see any evidence that shows that route is the best
  • Remand to file evidence to support Route S
  • Glotfelty – Believe Route H is more appropriate; as a future development should not exclude properties from consideration
  • Motion to remand this back so they can file evidence to support Route S by April 22
    • Motion adopted

 

Item 17: Docket No. 55830 – Settlement Agreement and Report to the Commission Regarding RE Maplewood LLC’s Violations of 16 TAC §§ 25.55(c)(3)(A) and (B), Related to Weather Preparedness Declaration Requirements for Calendar Years 2022 and 2023. (Final Order)

  • Consented

 

Item 18: Docket No. 55834 – Settlement Agreement and Report to the Commission Regarding Floydada Electric Department’s Violations of PURA § 38.102 and 16 TAC § 25.97, Related to Annual Power Line Inspection and Safety Reporting Requirements for Calendar Year 2022. (Final Order)

  • Consented

 

Item 19: Docket No. 55991 – Application of Lone Star Transmission, LLC to Amend Its Certificate of Convenience and Necessity and Notice of PURA § 14.101 Transaction. (Order on Interim Appeal)

  • Appeal filed on this proceeding to consider whether to extend time to act on this order
  • Gleeson and commissioners
  • Motion to extend time to act on this order to the maximum allowed
    • Motion adopted

 

20: Docket No. 56165; SOAH Docket No. 473-24-12812 – Application of AEP Texas Inc. for Authority to Change Rates. (Preliminary Order)

  • Consented

 

Item 21: Docket No. 56211; SOAH Docket No. 473-24-13232 – Application of CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric, LLC for Authority to Change Rates. (Preliminary Order)

  • Consented

 

Item 22: Public comment for matters under the Commission’s jurisdiction but not specifically posted on this agenda

  • Three commenters signed up to speak, but the chair noted that oral argument was denied on that docket item

 

Item 23: Discussion and possible action regarding implementation of state legislation affecting water and sewer companies, current and projected rulemakings and other projects, comments to other state agencies, and Commission priorities.

  • Not discussed

 

Item 24: Discussion and possible action regarding implementation of state and federal legislation affecting telecommunications markets, current and projected rulemakings and other projects, comments to other state and federal agencies, and Commission priorities.

  • Not discussed

 

Item 25: Project No. 55999 – Reports of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. (Discussion and possible action)

Rebecca Zerwas, ERCOT Staff

  • Gleeson – Need to address this issue, need to increase demand response effort
  • Gleeson – Concerning shadow pricing for IROL, could be a short-term gain
  • Glotfelty – Saw an article about a technology that could be put on the system to better utilize capacity; ERCOT told me they would look at it
  • Glotfelty – There may be a technological advancement that would be a short-term solution that could minimize congestion costs
  • Cobos – Need to mitigate risks in South Texas with the solutions available now; ERCOT has gotten information that leads them to believe there are these short-term demand response solutions, put out an RFP
  • Cobos – Not familiar with IROL and shadow pricing, but the DR search would be a good action taken
  • Gleeson – Want to work with staff on how this would mitigate our short-term issues
  • Jackson – Will be working with ERCOT on this specifically
  • Cobos – Ask ERCOT look at efforts such as generation siting hubs; potential storage resources could be used in South Texas
  • Zerwas – Will work with you and will possibly bring this up again at the next meeting

 

Item 26: Project No. 54445 – Review of Protocols Adopted by the Independent Organization. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Gleeson – 19 proposed revisions that are unanimously approved; recommend approval
  • Cobos – Thanks staff/ERCOT for their work on this; are moving in the right direction concerning storage
  • Gleeson – This shows the process we put in place is working
  • Glotfelty – Supportive of all these NPRRs
  • Motion to approve the protocols
    • Motion adopted

 

Item 27: Project No. 54584 – Reliability Standard for the ERCOT Market. (Discussion and possible action)

Warner Roth, PUC Staff

  • ERCOT filed memo and parameters for the reliability standard; do not have comment on that, but want to discuss next steps
  • Gleeson – Will do a rule on this that needs to be adopted by May 16
  • Gleeson – ERCOT and staff could brief us independently on all these runs; but would be a benefit to do this publicly
  • Gleeson – Should set a May 2 technical work session around 1 or 2 PM
  • Commissioners – Supportive of setting that work session

 

Item 28: Project No. 55000 – Performance Credit Mechanism (PCM). (Discussion and possible action)

Warner Roth, PUC Staff

  • Staff filed a memo to cover discussions of last meeting
  • Have a list of action items: analyzing how to simplify the process, how to cost cap, seasons, what metric used for what hours are PC hours, need additional information on base year – need assumptions as the comparison point, updated timeline
  • April 17 ERCOT workshop and additional work session in June/July to ask questions of market participants
  • Gleeson – Need cost analysis by November; good with this timeline; will have final report for the legislature/governor by December

 

Item 29: Project No. 55718 – Reliability Plan for the Permian Basin under PURA §39.167. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Cobos – ERCOT made a filing on this in the beginning of April

 

Christi Hobbs, ERCOT

  • Began work on refining numbers based on updated TSP data
  • Was a large amount of unconfirmed additional load; 56% of additional load was unconfirmed; now only 8% unconfirmed
  • Are now looking at one reliability plan instead of two since the unconfirmed number has lowered
  • Are seeing in initial study results area needs substantial amounts of transmission in the region
  • Estimating additional needs: 565 miles of new 345 lines just in the region; 8 new substations; 326 miles updates to existing 345; and additional KV
  • Will continue to revise this plan and what imports will be needed in the region
  • Cobos – Nonoil and gas confirmed load; what is the comprised of?
    • 12k MW; 8% data center, 12% commercial industrial, 58% crypto mining, 22% green hydrogen
  • Cobos – How many MW in crypto
    • Over 6k MW
  • Cobos – And the green hydrogen?
    • Over 2k MW
  • Cobos – HB 5066 provides ability for TSPs to submit reasonable load data; important that we move forward in prioritizing implementation of that bill
  • Cobos – Commission could develop reasonableness criteria
  • Staff – Will move that up in priority
  • Glotfelty – ERCOT and RPG study things in silos; need things modeled together; are big impacts to invertor-based resources, imports/exports
    • Recognize resources added to the system are not the traditional ones we planned for; transmission planning process is longer
    • Are looking at ways to evolve the process
  • Cobos – Along with the transmission, need power generation too; need to look at this on a macro level and sync things up
    • Are moving on a project on the backbone that would be needed by the state; getting stakeholder review on that
    • Are moving at a fast pace to provide a final plan to the commission this summer
  • Cobos – Need to balance affordability and reliability; are national discussions with these larger things coming on to the system like AI data centers and crypto mining
  • Gleeson – Thoughts on high voltage lines?
  • Glotfelty – Can go down to a 765 to 345 just need appropriate facilities; HDVC does not need the same; encourage you to continue to look at HDVC solutions
  • Jackson – Now we have a different mechanism for transmission planning; may need more granularity – different indicators to determine what is reasonable going forward
  • Glotfelty – 11 of the largest O&G companies are looking at small modular rector projects; one looking at PPA terms and conditions for small modular reactors

 

Item 30: Project No. 55812 – Texas Energy Fund Completion Bonus Grant Program. (Proposal for Adoption)

David Gordon, PUC Staff

  • Presenting the PFA for this TEF rule; thanks staff and partners at Deloitte
  • Similar to the proposal in November
  • Approved applicants will seek to obtain for 10 successive years
  • Performance metrics 1) performance reliability factor (real-time performance) and 2) availability reliability factor (measure availability during those hours, not in a planned outage) would lead to a potential discount
  • Measures are compared to a sample group of similar technologies to be selected by ERCOT for resources commissioned after 2004
  • Switchable units operating in more than one ISO are eligible but subject to the same performance measures
  • Recommended this is allowable for new construction, but not for facilities upgrades because new legislation does not use the term “upgrade” for completion bonus program
  • Gleeson – Asks about PRF
    • Chris Bown, PUC Staff – Proportion of time the resource is not in a planned outage; PRF excludes this metric; is an equity consideration. A PRF may have different ARFs.
  • Gleeson and Glotfelty – If the ARF removed, if available for 5 hours, but planned (ERCOT approved) outage for 95 hours, how much bonus
    • Chris Bown, PUC Staff – If perfect PRF in those 5 hours, would get full payment; presuming it is an ERCOT approved outage
    • Chris Bown, PUC Staff – PRF needs to achieve above 50% to receive any payment and is scaled up based upon their percentile; ARF is a discount on what they are eligible for
  • Gleeson – Request postponing until the next meeting as a couple of concerns have come up in the last couple days; this is supposed to be a high bar, if someone is in a planned outage for 95% of the time during 100 tightest hours, do not know if they should get the full amount; need to talk to stakeholders
  • Glotfelty – Agree on waiting on this; concerned with the definition of “new facility”; need flexibility; if want to add to a peaker plant, not eligible under this, want extra time to work on that issue. Adding another combustion turbine to a facility, not eligible.
  • Cobos – Would be helpful to explore both of those issues; would not be supportive of including uprates to existing facilities as an eligible project
    • Staff – Is a difference between upgrade versus uprate
  • Glotfelty – If you are adding new turbines are adding new MWs; agree with Cobos
  • Jackson – Need all the MWs we can get as quickly as we can; this plan will incentivize urgency
  • Gleeson – Units from 2004 and up used for the baseline comparison; why?
    • Gordon – Wanted to ensure we had a large enough pool to make appropriate comparisons; if moved into the future, would restrict pool
  • Glotfelty – Discusses experience in the field; do not want to discourage most-efficient and newer technologies from benefiting from this program. Built Magic Valley years ago, most efficient turbine in market. Didn’t operate well at first but was repaired and ran well. Don’t want to discourage efficient units.
  • Gleeson – Happy to lower the bar for the loan program to get them in; this is aspirational. [If units had trouble in first year, then they would only lose first year]
  • Glotfelty – Each year of bonus program is independent of the other.
    • Gordon – First test on this system is the June 1 after they came online
    • PUC Staff – From discussion, are interested in the following projects to be eligible: new construction, upgrade (expansion of existing units), uprates that would put out more MWs
  • Gleeson – Notice of Intent to apply starts May 1st. Would like this do be completed as soon as possible; comfortable with the PRF piece, ARF needs work

 

Item 31: Project No. 37344 – Information Related to the Entergy Regional State Committee. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Not discussed

 

Item 32: Project No. 41211 – Information Related to the Organization of MISO States. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Not discussed

 

Item 33: Project No. 41210 – Information Related to the Southwest Power Pool Regional State Committee. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Not discussed

 

Item 34: Project No. 55421 – Texas Advanced Nuclear Reactor Working Group. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Not discussed

 

Item 35: Project No. 51879 – Information Related to the Western Energy Imbalance Market. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Not discussed

 

Item 36: Discussion and possible action on electric reliability; electric market development; powerto-choose website; ERCOT oversight; transmission planning, construction, and cost recovery; and electric reliability standards and organizations arising under federal law.

  • Not discussed

 

Item 37: Discussion and possible action regarding implementation of state and federal legislation affecting electricity markets including current and projected rulemakings and other projects, comments to other state and federal agencies and Commission priorities.

  • Not discussed

 

Item 38: Project No. 55156 – Implementation Activities 88th Legislature (R.S.) (Discussion and possible action)

  • Not discussed

 

Item 39: Project No. 55307 – Review of Chapter 27 – Rules for Administrative Services. (Proposal for Publication)

  • Motion to approve notice of intent to review Chapter 27 and for printing in the Texas Register
    • Motion adopted

 

Item 40: Project No. 56060 – CY 2024 Rulemaking Calendar. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Not discussed

 

Item 41: Project No. 56335 – Agency Report to the 89th Legislature. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Glotfelty – Under the emergent issue section; nuclear power section consistent with whatever is in the report to the governor
  • PUC Staff – Yes; draft version of the report will be brought to the commission in early Fall for feedback

 

Item 42: Discussion and possible action regarding agency review by Sunset Advisory Commission, operating budget, strategic plan, appropriations request, project assignments, correspondence, staff reports, agency administrative issues, agency organization, fiscal matters and personnel policy.

  • Connie Corona, PUC ED – Overviews staff changes

 

Item 43: Discussion and possible action regarding customer service issues, including but not limited to correspondence and complaint issues.

  • Not discussed

 

Item 44: Discussion and possible action on infrastructure reliability, emergency management, and homeland security.

  • Not discussed

 

Adjourned