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The Public Utility Commission met on October 20, 2022 to discuss a number of items. The agenda and an archived video of this hearing can be found here.

 

This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of 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 and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.

 

Items to be taken up without discussion: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, and 25

 

Item 9: Docket No. 54044- Petition for an Order Appointing a Temporary Manager for Marion J. Smith dba Smith Management Services. (Order on Temporary Manager)

  • Cobos- move to grant position and appoint CSWR, set compensation at $12 per water connection per month
  • Motion passes

 

Item 10: Project No. 52405- Review of Certain Water Customer Protection Rules. (Proposal for Adoption)

  • Motion passes

 

Item 11: 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 12: 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 14: Docket No. 52241; SOAH Docket No. 473-22-0126- Application of Entergy Texas, Inc. to Amend Its Certificate of Convenience and Necessity for the Millbend 138-kV Transmission Line Project in Montgomery County. (Final Order)

  • Glotfelty- Route decision issue and issue of technical changes and grammatical issues etc; should grant good cause for virtual public meetings; need to fix these datapoints regardless of what route we choose
  • Glotfelty- Struggle with agreed upon route; $12-13 M more for a short line is a challenge, route 9M seems to be shortest and I support it; can’t allow all interveners to say we want most expensive route or one that doesn’t affect us
  • Lake- And also be mindful of those who happen to be impacted who aren’t interveners
  • Cobos- Want to encourage settled routes but have to evaluate routes; believe 9M best to choose, more positives; believe Entergy and Staff unopposed to route 1 but 9M merits our approval
  • McAdams- Directly affect 117 habitable structures, 39 fewer than route 1; clearly needs to move forward and encourage settlements where practical
  • Lake- But not at additional expense at millions of dollars to rate payers and substantially more habitable structures being impacted
  • Move to incorporate proposed changes as noted in memo; motion passes

 

Item 17: Docket No. 53288- Application of Electric Transmission Texas, LLC to Amend Its Certificates of Convenience and Necessity for the ETT Del Sol-To-Equinox 345-kV Transmission Line in Starr County. (Discussion and possible action, and Appeal of Interim Order)

  • McAdams- Intent to create pathway to harmonize Parks and Wildlife code and PUC code; reoccurring issue
    • If Parks and Wildlife doesn’t provide sufficient evidence or intervene in a matter then party shouldn’t engage in discovery or litigate these issue; could delay projects
  • McAdams- Should grant ETTs appeal on Order 7 and deny Staff’s motion to compel; adopt action items of my memo; Staff work on as calendar permits and make any substantive edits as needed
  • Glotfelty- Process for advisement is problematic; recommendations could be very expensive; environmental work in California has become a multimillion dollars compliance issue for transmission lines; we don’t want this, too convoluted
  • Glotfelty- If they have a statutory obligation to protect something they should be involved in the case, but otherwise we will take recommendations under advisement
  • PUC Staff- Meeting set up with legal division of Parks and Wildlife next week to talk about process issues in the case
  • Cobos- Not Staff’s burden to build case to ensure cost benefit analysis on Parks and Wildlife recommendation; clear direction with Staff in terms of site agreements will be helpful with the rule
  • Glotfelty- When dealing with routing consultants they are experts in these areas as well; they consider environment at front end of the process
  • Thompson- Value both environmental stewardship and economic development
  • Move to grant appeal and deny Staffs motion to compel; adopt actions in memo and add rule making to calendar and grant abilities to make stylistic, editorial, and substantive edits
  • Glotfelty- Can we add that Staff come back to us after meeting with Parks and Wildlife?
  • Lake-Yes
  • Motion passes

 

Item 21: Project No. 51603- Review of Distributed Energy Resources. (Discussion and possible action)

  • McAdams- Directions to Staff and ERCOT were to potentially complete rulemaking draft by Dec 15 and ERCOT to start stakeholder process to clarify 3.8.6.
  • McAdams- Staff proposed breaking project into 2 phases: embrace and accomplish tech requirements in mid-Nov, and to engage in cost-recovery for service requesting response for question by Nov 17, PUCT Staff to complete discussion draft by Dec 15
  • McAdams- ERCOT protocol to require a dedicated feeder to meet requirements; issue of if a resource that participates in ancillary services is interconnected on system
    • Oncor and other utilities viewed that if a distributed resource participated in the AS market, then the feeder could not be rotated as part of a load shed plan (per 3.8.6) in an emergency; to clarify that planning guide we are talking to ERCOT to resolve ambiguity and give flexibility to satisfy operation requirements and ensure clarity
  • McAdams- ERCOT’s view: don’t need to require dedicated feeder but may be limited to designating circuits as non-load shed; ERCOT doesn’t want resources providing ancillary services if during emergency they could be at risk of being disconnected. MWs would be trapped
    • Can provide certain ancillary services particularly non-spin and regulation down while maintaining reliability. Will keep system out of emergency condition
    • Address providing all ancillary services resources; QSE carries risk of not meeting performance obligations if circuit has outage for any reason
    • Open to qualification of resources opening up ERCOT contingency service (ECRS)
    • Urge to direct ERCOT to move forward with Staff proposed protocol revision and introduce into stakeholder process under expedited consideration
  • Lake- Two components: 1. Clarification on existing rules saying energy resource doesn’t have to construct own dedicated feeder in order to be employed, and can link up to non-curtailable circuit 2. Protocol change to address participation in a curtailable circuit and expand batteries participating in ancillary service as long as its only non-spin and reg down
  • ERCOT Staff- Proposed some amount of DESRs that are providing reg up and responsive reserves because they are on non-curtailable circuits
  • Lake- Want to take further action and change protocol to clarify that on a curtailable they can provide non-spin and reg down; request that as we go through this ERCOT engage with TAC and come back with proposed timelines
  • Lake- TDSPs to ensure abundantly clear in new protocol that while a battery on a curtailable circuit that is participating in non-spin or any ancillary service is in state of discharge can’t be part of load shed; addressed in ERCOT memo but change wording of presumably to certainly
  • ERCOT Staff- If we need a particular feeder to shed certain load if batteries were producing less load then it would only be on net megawatts and need to shed that load elsewhere; TO will have monitoring in distribution feeder and know what net load is
  • Lake- Ask TAC to come back with clear and decisive mechanism to ensure that is accounted for during a load shed event
  • Glotfelty- Issue come about because we have more batteries trying to connect at the distribution voltage; load shed procedures will have to change as more batteries come on
  • McAdams- How targeted can we impose a load shed plan? Comes into conversation
  • Cobos- Need to get data to track distributor resources
  • ERCOT Staff- Need to know what distributed resources are on distribution system in way that can reflect this on transmission bus
  • Cobos- NPRR 987 will now account for battery storage when you calculate PRC; is there any overlap here? ERCOT will count storage in PRC which may result in non-spin not being deployed; relation with what ERCOT is doing with what we are doing here?
  • ERCOT Staff- Some in summer graph review presentation; 23% of amount on distribution system that’s providing responsive that is on distributive resources
  • Cobos- As we have more resources on distribution system that percentage could increase and impact the PRC calc ultimately negating need to deploy non-spin in certain conditions?
  • ERCOT Staff- Will have to think through that one, if they provide non-spin and they are distributed resource, are we going to count head room when they are online toward PRC
  • McAdams- Staff memo attempted to address parameters outlined in joint memo; Staff put question mark behind principles to set field on a discussion draft; trying to move slow and in a transparent process
  • McAdams- Want to express concern on Item 4 in filed memo; question should NOIEs be required to comply with cost allocation standards established with distribution system in rulemaking; may have unintended effect of calling into question our regulation of NOIEs; believe it is settled law, we have that ability so possibly eliminate that question
  • McAdams- Question number 6; citing of rule already established then asks if commission should revisit policy on wholesale service load; what is the ultimate intent of the question and how should it affect installed battery capacity?
  • PUC Staff- Not intent that commission will want to change existing rules; would like to have parties comment on aspects that could be included given technology development
  • Lake- Request for forward looking aspects not going back on previous matters
  • Cobos- Should we restructure the question? Don’t want regulatory uncertainty cloud
  • PUC Staff- Will work on language to reflect this discussion; memos should be filed Monday; these are information gathering questions
  • Staff- Question 4 carrying out; Staff agrees that that is settled law and don’t need to be seeking comment on that; for question 5 will be moving to first project
  • Glotfelty- We talk a lot about costs on system; would like stakeholders to talk about benefits and highlight those to help understand these resources
  • McAdams- recommend that we instruct Staff to move forward and adopt Staff proposed memo
  • Lake- Don’t need any formal action

 

Item 22: Project No. 51879- Information Related to the Western Energy Imbalance Market. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Not discussed

Item 23: Project No. 52373- Review of Wholesale Electric Market Design. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Not discussed

Item 24: Project No. 52933- CY 2022 Reports of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Not discussed

 

Item 33: Discussion and possible action on electric reliability; electric market development; power-to-choose website; ERCOT oversight; transmission planning, construction, and cost recovery in areas outside of ERCOT; and electric reliability standards and organizations arising under federal law.

  • Served more customer demand than ever before; set several peaks ending with new all time record of over 80 GW; higher wind and solar generation; only slightly higher thermal forced unit outages
  • Able to serve record demands without any energy emergencies

 

Kenan Ă–gelman, ERCOT

  • Lots more usage and many more scarcity intervals than seen in previous summers; increased prices for energy and ancillary services coupled with increased usage caused higher effects on bills
  • McAdams- Demand periods were huge this summer; demonstrates the transition we are in right now; ERCOT is in center of it and we appreciate work of Staff
  • Cobos- ERCOT still had excess generation to serve more households; SPP In July hit somewhere in the mid 50 GW

 

Adjourned and met in a closed session