Supporting Clients for New Electric Market Design

Intertek has been working with electricity market participants throughout North America, assisting them in preparing for new market design.

Our consultants develop methodologies and tools for clients participating in various electric markets. Intertek has been leading the industry in determining renewable integration cost impacts on power plant dispatch. We are developing models and methodologies to not only determine these costs, but also helping our clients mitigate the increased cost liability on traditional fossil power plants due to new market design or generation mix. Our industry experts consult with our clients to provide better operating procedures to improve reliability at plants and reduce costs. We are also developing models to use new services and products such as Demand Response (DR) and integrate them with your generation portfolio. These models help you to best prepare for new market design, reduce risks, and maximize your profit.

Intertek's software tools can assist in co-optimizing every generation type to ensure cost minimization, while meeting the market rules. Our experienced consultants provide a wide range of analytical and economic and policy services assisting ISOs, utilities, and regulators in their decision making.

ERCOT – Verifiable Cost Submissions

• Determine and Submit Your "Verifiable Costs"
• Use the "Actual" O&M Cost to Minimize Cost in Nodal Market

As part of the September 2003, Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) order, ERCOT is developing a nodal wholesale market design. ERCOT is transitioning from zonal markets to nodal markets and creating new market rules that market participants, including Merchant Power generators, Service Providers, Utilities and Municipalities, have to comply with. For a Qualified Scheduling Entity (QSE) representing Resource Entities, a key input is the determination of “Verifiable Costs”. As ERCOT transitions to the new nodal markets, not only do Resource Entities and QSEs need to submit these verifiable costs to ERCOT as part of the market design, but they also need to utilize accurate startup costs and variable O&M costs in order to make good economic decisions regarding their bids into the markets and for their plant operations. These costs are submitted to ERCOT for each individual resource and must be verified by ERCOT or the QSE, or the Resource Entity can accept ERCOT’s standard offer costs. We have found that these standard, generic costs may significantly underestimate the true cost to cycle your power plant in hot, warm, and cold starts as well as load following cost and automatic generation control cost. Utilizing the generic costs could cause you to cycle the power plant on/off excessively and you will not recover the true costs to cycle these plants. Intertek can help you in determining these costs for submissions to ERCOT.

Intertek has successfully assisted submissions of the verifiable costs for combined cycle, gas turbine, gas-fueled steam, and coal fueled steam plants for our clients. Intertek’s own methodology for calculating the Verifiable Costs has been accepted by ERCOT. Knowing these significant costs is very important for the power producer to realize and act on to operate profitably. We can provide assistance in calculating accurate Verifiable Costs for the Nodal Market in preparation of the ERCOT data submission templates.

Contact us to see how Intertek can help your organization with Supporting Clients for New Electric Market Design.