Grid Roundup #50: ERCOT Board Meeting Edition

ERCOT's RMR is behind schedule, over budget; Chronicle rebuts CenterPoint's assertions on generators; Dallas Fed warns ERCOT Board about tariff impacts; ERCOT load projections revised.

• ERCOT's new “State of the Grid” report includes load forecasts in a more realistic range of 113-137 gigawatts by 2029, down from 150 GW projected last year.

• The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas will tell the ERCOT Board they estimate 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada would cost 109,000 Texas jobs and cause a 1.5% drop to Texas’ GDP.

• Also at the Board meeting, ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas will tell the Board the Reliability Must Run project for Braunig Unit 3 is behind schedule and over budget. Who could’ve possibly foreseen it?

• CenterPoint agrees to “make their customers whole,” but the Houston Chronicle provides some clarity, saying CenterPoint “will not refund customers.”

• A Senate committee will hear a bill to increase authority for the Commission to impose penalties on utilities like CenterPoint but Chairman Schwertner chose a metric that typically excludes reliability during major events like hurricanes.

I will hold a live chat for at least the first hour of the ERCOT Board Meeting today beginning at 3:00 p.m. CT. The chats, this and all the rest of the Grid Roundups, the full article archives, select Energy Capital Podcasts, including this one with John Arnold, are for paid subscribers only. If you aren’t yet a paid subscriber, please become one today.