Texas Reliability Entity Issues 2016 Performance Report

Texas Reliability Entity Issues 2016 Performance Report

June 7, 2017

by Margarita Fournier, Copyright 2016 by Competitive Assets, LLC.  All rights reserved

The Texas RE annual reliability report was issued on 6/6/17. The agency’s 2016 Assessment of Reliability Performance Report on ERCOT’s bulk power system (BPS) strives “to illuminate the historical and overall BPS reliability picture, to help identify risk areas, and to prioritize and create actionable results for reliability improvement.” It “represents an ongoing effort by Texas RE to provide a view of risks to reliability based on historic performance. By integrating many ongoing efforts and addressing key measurable components of BPS reliability, this report seeks to provide insight, guidance, and direction to those areas in which reliability goals can be more effectively achieved.” The document also seeks “to streamline and align the data and information reporting arising from multiple sources.” Its key findings and observations may “serve as inputs to process improvements, event analysis, reliability assessments, and critical infrastructure protection.” The report states these key observations for 2016:

• Transmission availability, outages per circuit, and outages per 100 miles of line remained stable in 2016 when compared to previous years;
• ERCOT-wide generation performance metrics continue to exceed NERC-wide averages;
• Growth in renewable generation continues to be managed well by ERCOT;
• Frequency control and primary frequency response metrics continue to be maintained at high levels; and
• Protection System Misoperation rates are showing an improving trend; however, misoperations from AS-Left Personnel Errors are showing a marked increase.

The report, which found that the overall BPS reliability performed within the defined acceptable performance metrics, additionally identified major focus areas for 2017:

• Changing resource mix and resource adequacy
  • Distributed energy resource observability;
• Essential reliability services
  • System inertia changes with resource mix
  • Net demand ramping variability
  • Distributed energy resources’ effects on demand, ramping, and voltage control
• Cyber and physical security;
• Load serving capability of the Lower Rio Grande Valley area;
• Situational awareness; and
• Human performance.

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