Thursday, February 3, 2011

Interpreting ERCOT tea leaves

Since the first rolling blackouts caught everyone by surprise, I've been trying to figure out how we tell what's going on for ourselves. Sharing what unscientific, unverified info I have grokked below.

ERCOT operations messages are listed here. Also in a handy RSS form. These appear to be the best real-time information available to the public.

Heavy on energy market terms like DAM (Day Ahead Market), the most important stuff for us appears to be the EEA levels:

EEA Level 1 - All available resources in use. Discretionary ("non-firm") energy sales stop.

EEA Level 2 - Load Management procedures in effect; no longer able to meet demand. Public appeals to reduce demand. Reduction in voltage. Interruption of power to entities who have signed contracts allowing such. Make use of "all resources".
2a - Medium potential for outages.
2b - High potential for outages.

EEA Level 3 - Forseen or actual loss of power. Rotating blackouts, etc.





Also, here's a fun "load shedding" training doc to peruse.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Having some experience in the Electric Utility Industry we (ie. Ercot/Texas) lost 7,000+ MegaWatts of Generation on over 50 units due to the extreme cold weather. We were short approximately 5,000 MegaWatts from customer loads throughout the state. Many other industrial plants (chemical, petroleum, gas, etc) had issues due to the cold weather as well. I happened to have been visiting some of these plants and all were experiencing issues caused by the cold weather. Mechanical equipment does not like extreme temperatures.