Chris Reeder will moderate, "Solving the Thermal Generation/Dispatchable Asset Shortage," at the ERCOT Market Summit on Wednesday, February 22, 2023.
One of the prime concerns in the energy transition in ERCOT is the future availability of dispatchable generation assets. ERCOT has increasingly depended on running existing thermal generation units and restricting maintenance periods, while handling many stability issues through expensive ancillary service products. With an aging thermal fleet ill-suited to respond to frequent ramps, and the price signals needed to entice the construction of new peakers and other fast-response assets lacking, what is the best way forward? This panel will explore they potential ways to make sure the assets are there to meet system balancing needs.
- What have the impacts of increased Reliability Unit Commitments and reduced windows for plant maintenance on forced outages?
- Are the targeted margins too high?
- Will the continued addition of solar help balance wind to provide stability and decrease the overall need for dispatchable assets?
- Could real-time co-optimization minimize the need for more generation?
- Can REPs, munis and consumers continue to pay the increasing costs of ancillary services to meet system balancing needs?
- What impacts on new plant announcements are being seen as gas prices have doubled and power prices hit the new $5000 price cap?
- What is the marginal cost of adding last mile batteries vs peakers?
- Will a mechanism to discount the returns to renewables or penalize them create the right market signals to drive development of dispatchable generation or storage?
You can find out more information about this presentation on the conference website.