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The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is anticipating a 9.5% year-on-year increase in peakload power demand for the upcoming autumn season, but reassured stakeholders it would have access to “sufficient capacity” installed system-wide.
Peak demand is forecast to amount to 54,437 MW in autumn 2016, up 9.5% from the estimate of 49,709 MW for autumn last year, ERCOT said in its final Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy (SARA) for October-November. Actual monthly peakload in October 2015 came in at 59,187 MW and 44,945 MW in November 2015.
Since the release of the preliminary fall SARA in May 2016, four gas-fired combustion turbine units with 623 MW seasonal capacity rating and three wind projects (703 MW nameplate, 273 MW fall capacity contribution) have become fully operational, according the latest report. Three of the gas power units are ‘switchable generation resources’ that can connect to either the ERCOT or Southwest Power Pool grids. In addition, a mothballed 83 MW gas-fired power plant was restarted in July.
Small rise in reserve capacity
On the supply side, total resources rose 6.4% year over year to 82,216 MW from 77,289 MW – making ERCOT confident that there will be enough electricity supply available at all times to match demand.
Reserve capacity – calculated by subtracting peak demand from total installed capacity – stands at 27,779 MW in autumn 2016, marking a fairly small rise of 0.7% from the reserve capacity of 27,580 MW in the previous year.
About 1,200 MW of new winter-rated capacity is expected to be in service at the start of the winter season. The forecast also accounts for a range of about 13,700 to more than 19,000 MW of planned and un-planned outages.
‘Near-normal’ temperatures expected
Texas’ power grid operator said its 2016 autumn peak power forecast are based on normal weather conditions, although 2015 date from the National Weather Service shows that temperatures were 3.7 degrees above normal during October and November last year.
"While fall 2015 was the seventh warmest on record for Texas, we’re expecting this fall to reflect near-normal temperatures across most of ERCOT, with rainfall in the near-normal to above-normal ranges," said ERCOT Meteorologist Chris Coleman. "Combined, 2015 and 2016 are on track to be the wettest two consecutive years in Texas weather history."
