Austin News

Chairman of the Senate Business and Commerce Committee state Sen. Kelly Hancock (R-North Richland Hills) has introduced a bill that would promote ancillary services back-up generation for intermittent resources.

Relating to the responsibility for ancillary services costs incurred for the operation of intermittent wind and solar resources, Senate Bill 1278 has been recently filed by Hancock. He deemed that these services are crucial in maintaining the electric grid’s reliability, especially during peak demands period.

“Ancillary services are reserve generation and load resource capacity that can be used to address the variability in grid demand changes, such as large swings in both electricity demand and reductions in supply from falling generation performance,” Hancock stated in the Bill Analysis. “Intermittent generation, mainly wind and solar resources, cannot be 'dispatched' by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). This can make it look like we have a lot of installed generation capacity, but much of it cannot be relied upon because it is only there if the sun shines or the wind blows. ERCOT cannot tell these intermittent generators to provide power at any specific level, including during peak demand periods.”

In addition to noting that Texas sets a new peak demand nearly every year because of population and economic growth, Hancock stated February was devastating for millions of Texans suffering from power outages amid frozen temperature. Generators were not sufficient.

“What's contributing is the fact that we're relying on wind and the turbines are frozen as well as the fact that we're relying on solar and there's no sun shining,” Energy Alliance Policy Director Bill Peacock told the Lone Star Standard. “We could have a reliable natural gas backup in place but we don't. All three of those are related to the renewable energy policies in Texas and in the United States.”

Peacock strongly suggested to cease renewable energy subsidies including the “excessive regulation by the Texas Public Utility Commission and let the market work. Then, we will have a system that we can rely upon.”

Senate Bill 1278 would amend the current law and would tackle the limitations of intermittent resources by requiring the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) to direct ERCOT to assign the cost of ancillary services related to intermittent resources, and requiring to directly purchase new "firming" ancillary services from dispatchable generators.