AUSTIN, Texas — On Wednesday, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) released its semi-annual Capacity, Demand and Reserves (CDR) Report.
"The report examines expected generation capacity for the Texas grid showing adequate supplies through 2022," the council said in a tweet.
Wednesday's report comes after several other reports were released in recent weeks, claiming the electric grid still isn't prepared for a similar weather event as the catastrophic winter storms of February 2021.
According to ERCOT, the purpose of the CDR report is to provide 10-year "Planning Reserve Margins" for summer and winter "Peak Load Sessions." These sessions last June through September and December through February, respectively.
"The Planning Reserve Margin represents the percentage of resource capacity, in excess of firm electricity demand, available to cover uncertainty in future demand, generator availability and new resource supply," the report states. "Firm demand accounts for potential load reductions available through interruptible load programs controlled by ERCOT."
For summer 2022, the forecasted peak demand is 78,084 MW, while the firm peak demand is 74,977 MW. For winter 2022-23, it is 64,961 MW, whereas the firm peak demand forecast is 62,119 MW.
The Planning Reserve Margin for summer 2022 is forecasted at 23.9%, which is 4.9% lower than for summer 2022 reported in the May CDR report. ERCOT said this decrease is mainly due to delays of planned projects that were previously expected to be in service by July 1, 2022.
"Planned resource capacity expected for the 2022 summer peak demand totals 3,224 MW," the report shows. "This includes 762 MW of summer-rated gas-fired resources, 363 MW of wind resources, and 2,099 MW of solar resources. These amounts of solar and wind capacity are what ERCOT expects to be available on an average basis during peak demand hours (the peak average capacity contribution)."
Luke Metzger, the executive director of Environment Texas, a nonprofit group that is part of The Public Interest Network, released the following statement in regard to the CDR report.
"As Texas continues to grow and weather becomes more extreme, our demand for energy will only increase. The good news is renewables are up to the job. As the ERCOT report shows, renewables are already playing a critical role in meeting the state’s growing electricity needs.
"Renewables are clearly very important to our energy future. But the Texas PUC is considering changes that would make renewables more expensive at the behest of Gov. Abbott and his fossil fuel industry contributors. That could lead some projects to get canceled or scaled back, making the grid less reliable and dirtier. That’d be like cutting out our nose to spite our face.
"Instead the PUC should promote a cleaner, more reliable grid by working to interconnect our grid with the rest of the nation and reducing demand through investments in rooftop solar, energy efficiency and battery storage. We also need to address the Achilles heel of our winter energy supply and require gas infrastructure, which was primarily to blame for the February blackouts, to winterize."
To view the full report, click here.
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