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  • Item 1 - Antitrust Admonition - Kasey Kelm, ERCOT
    00:01:01
    Hello. ERCOT strictly prohibits market participants
  • 00:01:05
    and their employees who are participating in the ERCOT
  • 00:01:08
    activities from using their participation in ERCOT activities as a
  • 00:01:12
    forum for engaging in practices or communications that violate
  • 00:01:15
    the antitrust laws. The ERCOT Board has approved guidelines
  • 00:01:19
    for members of ERCOT committees, subcommittees and working groups
  • 00:01:23
    to be reviewed and followed by each
  • 00:01:27
    market participant attending ERCOT meetings. If you have
  • 00:01:30
    not received a copy of these guidelines, please review the document at this website.
  • 00:01:35
    Please remember your ongoing obligation to comply with all applicable
  • 00:01:39
    laws, including the antitrust laws. It thank
  • 00:02:23
    you very much for that, Kasey. With that, I'd like to welcome everyone
  • 00:02:28
    to our winter 202425 transmission
  • 00:02:32
    service provider Readiness Workshop.
  • 00:02:36
    My name is Ryan Conquer and I will be your today's
  • Item 2 - Agenda - Raihan Khondker, ERCOT
    00:02:39
    host. So before we start our presentations
  • 00:02:43
    I would like to give you a brief agenda what we have
  • 00:02:47
    for you today. We will start off with Directors Corner.
  • 00:02:52
    The Director of Weatherization Inspection, David will give you an update
  • 00:02:56
    going into the season with that right after that
  • 00:03:00
    we will have Chris Coleman. He will be providing
  • 00:03:04
    us winter weather forecast. After that we'll
  • 00:03:07
    take a quick short break and we will come back and we will
  • 00:03:11
    go through a market participant spotlight where we
  • 00:03:15
    will have Mike Brinkman from Pedernales Electric Co
  • 00:03:18
    Op providing a presentation and insights into
  • 00:03:22
    PEC's winter preparedness. All the items that
  • 00:03:26
    goes into the preparations. As a final
  • 00:03:29
    presentation for today we will have our very well
  • 00:03:33
    known and highly sought after winter inspection checklist
  • 00:03:37
    which will be presented by all our weatherization inspection staff.
  • 00:03:43
    For some of you it will be a refresher. But believe me or
  • 00:03:46
    not, we do get a few transmission service providers who
  • 00:03:50
    are registering each year. So it is also going to be a
  • 00:03:54
    new item for them and also helping them to get prepared for
  • 00:03:58
    the upcoming winter and also a refresher for our existing transmission
  • 00:04:02
    service providers. To keep it interesting we will have some
  • 00:04:06
    best practices that we have gathered so each
  • 00:04:09
    weather inspection staff will present those
  • 00:04:13
    and talk about different best practices. With that
  • Item 3 - Director’s Corner – Weatherization - David Kezell, ERCOT
    00:04:16
    I would like to welcome David Kezell on
  • 00:04:20
    the podium, David Kezell, the Director of Weatherization Inspection.
  • 00:04:25
    Thank you.
  • 00:04:40
    Thank you Raihan. Appreciate that introduction.
  • 00:04:46
    Just for safety sake,
  • 00:04:49
    if we have a fire alarm or something like that,
  • 00:04:52
    we'd ask you to muster in the parking lot where you've
  • 00:04:56
    come from, go back out by the guard where you came in
  • 00:04:59
    or if that's not open, please follow ERCOT personnel
  • 00:05:03
    out through some of our emergency exits and
  • 00:05:06
    should you need them, restrooms or just down this hall to the right,
  • 00:05:10
    make a left and a right.
  • 00:05:12
    Appreciate all of you Being here today, this is
  • 00:05:17
    a great opportunity for us to share some time and
  • 00:05:21
    some space with various market participants. This afternoon,
  • 00:05:25
    obviously the TSPs, and we
  • 00:05:28
    look forward to answering any questions that you may have.
  • 00:05:33
    If you have questions, please drop them into the chat.
  • 00:05:37
    If you're not here. If you're here, feel free to
  • 00:05:41
    any of you that are sitting a little bit further out. If you'd like to
  • 00:05:44
    move in closer and get near one of the microphones, you're welcome
  • 00:05:48
    to do that. And then when you have a question, you can just press the
  • 00:05:51
    button on the microphone to turn the light green and that way
  • 00:05:54
    we'll be able to hear you well.
  • 00:06:00
    So we've. This is our fourth year.
  • 00:06:03
    We've had the Weather Emergency Preparedness
  • 00:06:06
    Rule in place since late 2021,
  • 00:06:10
    and it got revised with a phase
  • 00:06:14
    two that was adopted in late 2022
  • 00:06:19
    and that added summer standards, as you're all aware of,
  • 00:06:23
    and in 2023, some specific
  • 00:06:27
    elements were made
  • 00:06:31
    applicable, including weather zone specific cold
  • 00:06:34
    and hot conditions at which the TSP facilities must
  • 00:06:38
    implement measures that can reasonably assure
  • 00:06:42
    their sustained operation at those conditions.
  • 00:06:46
    And those are potential measures
  • 00:06:50
    that are beyond what is explicitly required in
  • 00:06:54
    the rule. So this is our fourth season
  • 00:06:58
    with the PUCT rule in
  • 00:07:02
    place, and you can see there in the chart that we've done quite
  • 00:07:05
    a number approaching 3,000 inspections,
  • 00:07:11
    somewhat heavier on the resource side than the TSP facility side.
  • 00:07:14
    And that's in accordance with the rule. One of the required requirements it's
  • 00:07:18
    based upon ERCOT is to inspect all of
  • 00:07:22
    the generation resources at least once every three years.
  • 00:07:26
    But on the TSP side, we're only required to
  • 00:07:29
    inspect 10%, and those would be
  • 00:07:33
    10% that are most critical to the operation of the grid.
  • 00:07:37
    We inspect at least 10% once every three
  • 00:07:40
    years.
  • 00:07:47
    So this slide here is simply
  • 00:07:50
    to. And you've seen this before,
  • 00:07:54
    some of you that have been here before, to demonstrate
  • 00:07:58
    that our collective efforts, you guys working in
  • 00:08:01
    the field, working with your compliance teams, working with your operators and
  • 00:08:05
    your technicians,
  • 00:08:08
    and the state having established the rule and utilizing
  • 00:08:12
    ERCOT to follow up on aspects of it and do these inspections,
  • 00:08:16
    it appears to be having a beneficial impact.
  • 00:08:20
    So the chart on the left is a
  • 00:08:23
    depiction of the severity of various winter
  • 00:08:27
    storms, with low and right being more severe
  • 00:08:31
    than up and left. And these are actually some of the
  • 00:08:34
    most severe storms that we've experienced. We have pulled
  • 00:08:39
    that data for a number of additional storms and
  • 00:08:42
    most of them are clustered up in the upper left quadrant. But URI
  • 00:08:46
    certainly broke all the rules in terms of how long it lasted
  • 00:08:50
    and how cold it was. And so subsequent to
  • 00:08:53
    that, of course, these rules were put in place. The state
  • 00:08:57
    rule was put in place. You can see on the right
  • 00:09:02
    some indication of how we're
  • 00:09:05
    doing in terms of reducing the level of
  • 00:09:10
    forced outages for non
  • 00:09:14
    renewable resources during these winter storms.
  • 00:09:18
    With the blue one being Uri, the black one being Elliot,
  • 00:09:22
    which occurred in December of 22, and the green one being
  • 00:09:26
    Uri, which occurred in February of this year.
  • 00:09:30
    So we've seen some incremental improvement.
  • 00:09:33
    We hope that if we have additional significant storms this winter,
  • 00:09:37
    that will have a line that's down there on the low end.
  • 00:09:43
    People have asked me, well, do you expect that to keep going down and
  • 00:09:46
    down and down? And my answer is no.
  • 00:09:50
    I do expect that we'll see some additional improvement.
  • 00:09:53
    I hope that we will. But the bottom line is the
  • 00:09:57
    standard is now in place, the rule is in place,
  • 00:10:01
    and that rule will take us so far and
  • 00:10:05
    give us so much protection. But unless there's
  • 00:10:09
    widespread application of measures that take
  • 00:10:13
    us to even more difficult circumstances,
  • 00:10:16
    I think we will get to the point where we flatline at some point.
  • 00:10:19
    And ideally that flatline condition will allow us to maintain
  • 00:10:24
    reliability at the level where it needs to be in
  • 00:10:28
    order for us to assure that the grid has
  • 00:10:32
    enough energy to meet the demand.
  • 00:10:35
    So at any rate, thank you for all of your contributions to
  • 00:10:39
    making this a success and bringing down the outage rates during these cold
  • 00:10:43
    storms.
  • 00:10:50
    Seems that I've lost capacity. Thank you.
  • 00:10:54
    So we've attempted and endeavored
  • 00:10:59
    to try to have a good working relationship
  • 00:11:03
    with the market participants. We obviously have
  • 00:11:08
    an oversight responsibility that the state has assigned
  • 00:11:12
    to ERCOT.
  • 00:11:15
    So we do strive to help
  • 00:11:19
    you comply with the provisions of the rule as carefully
  • 00:11:22
    as you can and answer questions and give you the support that
  • 00:11:26
    you need so that you can bring out your best compliance efforts.
  • 00:11:32
    We, I believe we had one new TSP join
  • 00:11:36
    ERCOT this past year and we
  • 00:11:40
    had a lot of new resources and new resource entities because we see
  • 00:11:43
    a lot of solar and batteries coming in from new companies.
  • 00:11:47
    So this applies more to them than it does to the TSP community.
  • 00:11:51
    But for the new tsp, we're anxious to
  • 00:11:55
    help you to learn the ropes of compliance with
  • 00:11:58
    this standard, with this rule,
  • 00:12:01
    and are happy to answer any questions you may have.
  • 00:12:04
    And for that matter, for those of you that have been around for a while,
  • 00:12:07
    something's not clear to you, please bring it up with us. We'll do our best
  • 00:12:11
    to describe it. I do want to just
  • 00:12:16
    make sure that everyone is aware that the Commission will
  • 00:12:20
    open enforcement investigations and they have
  • 00:12:23
    done that and they have resulted,
  • 00:12:27
    at least some of them have resulted in administrative penalties.
  • 00:12:31
    I saw an article that came across,
  • 00:12:35
    I'm not sure on which news wire, but there was close to
  • 00:12:39
    a million dollars worth of administrative penalties
  • 00:12:42
    that went out. I'm not sure what the period was.
  • 00:12:45
    Maybe last year coming out of the puc they were not
  • 00:12:49
    all weather related, but there were some that were associated
  • 00:12:54
    with the with this rule.
  • 00:12:58
    So we'll do our best to help you to comply,
  • 00:13:01
    to keep you out of that circumstance.
  • 00:13:04
    But obviously we need you to be on board and
  • 00:13:08
    to do your best effort to comply with these standards.
  • 00:13:12
    A few things that we would ask you to do is for
  • 00:13:15
    your email accounts associated with your authorized representative
  • 00:13:20
    and backup authorized representative,
  • 00:13:23
    please assure and for that matter anyone
  • 00:13:27
    else that interacts with ERCOT that that email there
  • 00:13:30
    ERCOT servicenowservices.com will
  • 00:13:34
    pass through your filters because we will be sending critical emails
  • 00:13:38
    there. And as you're likely aware
  • 00:13:43
    there's a time element associated with when we issue the Notice
  • 00:13:47
    of Inspection emails.
  • 00:13:50
    We expect a response within 24 hours.
  • 00:13:54
    And so it's important that those emails get to where they're
  • 00:13:57
    supposed to go as soon as possible. And we'd even suggest
  • 00:14:01
    that if you had challenges with this is
  • 00:14:05
    you take that AR and BAR email and
  • 00:14:09
    have it recognize that if an email comes in from this
  • 00:14:13
    site, maybe have it just automatically send it on
  • 00:14:16
    to some of your compliance personnel or your field personnel as appropriate.
  • 00:14:20
    That can be set up in Outlook or in other email packages.
  • 00:14:26
    The Declaration of Weather Preparedness Portal is
  • 00:14:30
    going to be open between 11. 1 and 12 1.
  • 00:14:34
    We'll probably leave it open somewhat after that, but certainly
  • 00:14:37
    you have to get your declaration submitted by
  • 00:14:41
    midnight on the 1st of December or it will be
  • 00:14:44
    late. And we are obligated to report to
  • 00:14:47
    the Commission who turned in on time,
  • 00:14:50
    who turned in late, who didn't turn in at all.
  • 00:14:54
    And that's not a position that you want to be in.
  • 00:14:57
    So please keep that window in mind. We will have the portal opening
  • 00:15:01
    up at 00001 on the 1st
  • 00:15:06
    so that you can begin preparing your submissions.
  • 00:15:11
    We have recorded training and the Market Participant
  • 00:15:15
    user Guide that can help you if you
  • 00:15:18
    need to brush up again on how to use the portal.
  • 00:15:22
    And if you need individualized attention because you're having some
  • 00:15:25
    trouble, you can reach out to our client
  • 00:15:29
    services folks or you can enter a weatherization
  • 00:15:34
    support case via the portal.
  • 00:15:37
    Some of the previously used specific email accounts
  • 00:15:42
    that we had in past years. We have retired and
  • 00:15:46
    we are no longer using DocuSign, which some of
  • 00:15:49
    you also have been through that functionality.
  • 00:15:52
    It's all now moved over onto the portal.
  • 00:16:00
    Okay, some more helpful suggestions that
  • 00:16:04
    will just keep us all in a highly compliant circumstance.
  • 00:16:10
    Recognize that when you turn in a declaration of
  • 00:16:13
    weather preparedness, you do have a document in there that's
  • 00:16:17
    signed by the highest ranking authority of your company and
  • 00:16:21
    it's notarized. So this is an official statement
  • 00:16:26
    on the part of that person that they are saying
  • 00:16:30
    that the information in this package is accurate and
  • 00:16:33
    true. So for those of you that are preparing the
  • 00:16:37
    packages and preparing it for that signature,
  • 00:16:40
    obviously you want to make sure that it is accurate
  • 00:16:43
    and true. And so what we
  • 00:16:46
    would ask you to do is just pay attention,
  • 00:16:50
    cross the T's, dot the I's, make sure that if
  • 00:16:54
    you're saying that yes, my training is done when
  • 00:16:57
    you turn that document in, make sure that it was done.
  • 00:17:01
    So if you turn the document in, for example,
  • 00:17:05
    on November 29,
  • 00:17:09
    you should have finished your training before then.
  • 00:17:13
    We don't want to show up for an inspection and find
  • 00:17:16
    out that you finished your training in early
  • 00:17:19
    December. So it's a statement that says, yes,
  • 00:17:23
    it is done, we've met these requirements and
  • 00:17:27
    when you make that statement, it should be true in that moment.
  • 00:17:31
    So we just want you to pay attention to that and
  • 00:17:35
    for the sake of your job. All of our jobs, we don't want to make
  • 00:17:38
    our bosses a liar.
  • 00:17:41
    The design basis, cold temperature and wind speed
  • 00:17:44
    that we request in the Appendix A document
  • 00:17:48
    are facility specific. And so
  • 00:17:51
    it is possible that perhaps a TSP
  • 00:17:55
    has the same design that they have used for their entire
  • 00:18:00
    area. And if that's the case, that's appropriate to put
  • 00:18:04
    the same numbers in there. But if it's not the case, then we want to
  • 00:18:07
    know what is the design level for the specific TSP
  • 00:18:12
    substations.
  • 00:18:16
    We have had people get confused and
  • 00:18:20
    you can ask an engineer and they say, well, what kind of wind speed is
  • 00:18:23
    this facility based on? And likely an
  • 00:18:26
    engineer may turn around and say, well, we prepared it
  • 00:18:30
    to withstand a Category 3 hurricane which
  • 00:18:33
    has 130 mile an hour winds. That's not the
  • 00:18:37
    wind speed we're looking for. We're looking for the wind speed that's associated
  • 00:18:40
    with the thermal design. So they will not be
  • 00:18:44
    picking values in that range. So just try to get
  • 00:18:47
    that specific information if you can.
  • 00:18:51
    We'd also request that trying
  • 00:19:01
    to see if I cover this later or here,
  • 00:19:06
    I'll just Mention that those values
  • 00:19:11
    are used to calculate wind chill.
  • 00:19:14
    And the wind chill equation as developed by the National
  • 00:19:18
    Weather Service and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric
  • 00:19:23
    Administration has some limitations to
  • 00:19:27
    it. So that equation is specifically
  • 00:19:31
    looking for wind speeds between
  • 00:19:35
    3 miles an hour and 100 miles an
  • 00:19:38
    hour. And it doesn't work if you
  • 00:19:42
    use a 1 mile an hour wind speed. So please take
  • 00:19:46
    that in consideration when you share that information with
  • 00:19:49
    us. And on the temperature side, I think the temperature has to
  • 00:19:53
    be less than 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Now,
  • 00:19:57
    I don't think there's anybody that designs for cold weather temperatures,
  • 00:20:00
    even in Texas that designs for something over 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • 00:20:04
    So that's probably not an issue. But we did see some people that would turn
  • 00:20:08
    in. Well, our facility design criteria for
  • 00:20:11
    wind is 120 miles an hour, and that
  • 00:20:15
    does not work well with the calculation for wind
  • 00:20:19
    chill. So we would ask you to take a look and talk
  • 00:20:23
    to some of the engineering folks in your companies or perhaps the
  • 00:20:26
    design engineers that may have put together the criteria
  • 00:20:31
    for your thermal design and see what type of wind speed
  • 00:20:34
    they used associated with the cold temperature.
  • 00:20:39
    We would ask you to please have multiple
  • 00:20:43
    people that are appropriately credentialed and trained
  • 00:20:46
    to use the portal. There are
  • 00:20:50
    some strict requirements in the rule, for example, turning in
  • 00:20:53
    the declarations of weather preparedness by December 1st.
  • 00:20:57
    So if you've only got one person that's credentialed and they happen to
  • 00:21:00
    get run over by the proverbial bus in late November,
  • 00:21:04
    you're going to be in trouble. So you want to make sure you got some
  • 00:21:07
    backup and make sure you got more than one person that can
  • 00:21:11
    handle interfacing with the portal for you.
  • 00:21:16
    Again, weatherization support cases, we're happy to
  • 00:21:20
    respond to those. If you've got questions or specific concerns,
  • 00:21:24
    we can help you there pretty promptly.
  • 00:21:28
    When we do come out for inspections, we would ask
  • 00:21:31
    you to have personnel there that are
  • 00:21:36
    well versed in your practices and in
  • 00:21:39
    what you've done to prepare for.
  • 00:21:42
    For the. For the winter season. We have had a few
  • 00:21:46
    unfortunate circumstances where we've gone to do
  • 00:21:50
    an inspection and the person that greeted us and opened
  • 00:21:54
    up the fence, let us in, basically didn't know much about the
  • 00:21:58
    site. And so they couldn't answer a lot of questions. And it made for a
  • 00:22:01
    protracted inspection circumstance
  • 00:22:05
    where we really couldn't get the information right away. So for
  • 00:22:09
    a smooth inspection, please try to make sure that you've got folks
  • 00:22:12
    there that are well familiar
  • 00:22:15
    with your practices.
  • 00:22:20
    Finally, if you do have a Compliance deficiency.
  • 00:22:24
    We would encourage you, and I think you already know this,
  • 00:22:28
    to resolve that deficiency as quickly
  • 00:22:32
    as possible in order to reduce
  • 00:22:36
    the amount of paperwork.
  • 00:22:40
    We run into little things frequently. For example,
  • 00:22:44
    we ask about training. And some will say,
  • 00:22:47
    yeah, we did the training, we did it in late November. I remember
  • 00:22:51
    everybody was there, I was there, we all signed a sheet. And then we
  • 00:22:54
    may ask, the inspectors may ask, okay, can I see a copy of
  • 00:22:58
    that sheet? And people go, wait a minute,
  • 00:23:03
    don't have that with me. So we'll want to see evidence that
  • 00:23:07
    the appropriate people were trained. And we would ask
  • 00:23:10
    you to please get that evidence there. If you don't have it in
  • 00:23:14
    the meeting, that's not the end of the world. You can get it later that
  • 00:23:17
    day, you can get it the next day and get it over to us.
  • 00:23:20
    And what we'll do is we'll just make note that we couldn't,
  • 00:23:24
    we did not see evidence on the day of the inspection. But if
  • 00:23:27
    you get it to us within three days, we'll just annotate
  • 00:23:31
    the inspection report that says this was delivered to us.
  • 00:23:34
    And we call those short lived compliance infractions.
  • 00:23:39
    And we've had many of those. And they get cleared up typically very
  • 00:23:43
    quickly. And that's great. When they do, if they go beyond three
  • 00:23:47
    days, then we are going to open a cure period.
  • 00:23:50
    And the rule allows us to utilize this concept of a cure
  • 00:23:54
    period. And it's a very wise concept because it
  • 00:23:58
    allows us to work with you to understand what is the circumstance,
  • 00:24:02
    what needs to be fixed, what's going to be involved in that process and
  • 00:24:06
    come up with a reasonable period of time for you to get that done.
  • 00:24:10
    But that is a more official process.
  • 00:24:14
    When we open a cure period, you'll be obligated to report to us
  • 00:24:18
    via the portal once every two weeks or
  • 00:24:21
    twice a month actually, until the cure
  • 00:24:25
    period is closed. And of course, if you don't get it closed
  • 00:24:28
    and don't get it resolved on time, then you are in violation of
  • 00:24:32
    the rule. And we are obligated to report that to the
  • 00:24:36
    utility commission and they will take a look at
  • 00:24:39
    it and they will determine what they need to do next. So again,
  • 00:24:44
    I just want to emphasize resolving compliance
  • 00:24:49
    deficiencies as quickly as possible is in all of our best
  • 00:24:53
    interests. One, because it gets us reliable as quickly as
  • 00:24:56
    possible, Two, it demonstrates compliance,
  • 00:24:59
    and three, it keeps us out of trouble, right?
  • 00:25:03
    It keeps us from having to go
  • 00:25:07
    where we need to go if people are not compliant with the rule.
  • 00:25:11
    And as I indicated earlier,
  • 00:25:14
    the Public Utilities Commission takes this rule
  • 00:25:18
    very seriously, and they want everyone to take it seriously.
  • 00:25:21
    And if there's evidence that someone's not doing that, then it's
  • 00:25:24
    probably going to hurt. Okay,
  • 00:25:30
    go on from there.
  • 00:25:35
    Wanted to make a few comments on the reasonable expectation of sustained operation
  • 00:25:40
    at the 95th percentile, minimum average 72 hour wind
  • 00:25:44
    chill. So the values in the chart there are
  • 00:25:48
    for these 10 weather zones that have been established.
  • 00:25:51
    You're all probably familiar with this.
  • 00:25:55
    And what perhaps is not entirely clear
  • 00:25:59
    is that the rule has specific requirements
  • 00:26:03
    that everyone must do.
  • 00:26:06
    Beyond those requirements, if there are additional measures
  • 00:26:10
    that your specific facility needs to
  • 00:26:13
    take in order to be reasonably assured that
  • 00:26:17
    they can expect sustained operations at those conditions
  • 00:26:21
    for your weather zone, then you need to take those measures as
  • 00:26:25
    well. And if a
  • 00:26:28
    failure to sustain operations occurs at
  • 00:26:32
    conditions that are less severe than the one in the chart,
  • 00:26:36
    then we're going to be in contact with you. And we saw
  • 00:26:40
    some of those last year with Winter Storm Heather,
  • 00:26:44
    where from the data that we could collect,
  • 00:26:47
    it appeared that the temperature and the wind speed
  • 00:26:51
    at the time of the failure resulted in a
  • 00:26:55
    wind chill that was above that level. And so we
  • 00:26:59
    issued RFIs and we asked questions about that.
  • 00:27:02
    And most of them we got good answers back and said, yeah, we understood what
  • 00:27:05
    happened, we've fixed it, we've taken care of it. And that's
  • 00:27:09
    the answer that we expect to get when we come
  • 00:27:12
    out this year for inspections, we'll be asking about
  • 00:27:17
    that some more. So please just be prepared
  • 00:27:21
    to demonstrate to us that you have been diligent in
  • 00:27:24
    pursuing remedies to whatever may have caused the failure
  • 00:27:28
    during those conditions last year. In that way,
  • 00:27:32
    you can say with integrity when you ask your boss's
  • 00:27:36
    boss to sign the declaration of weather preparedness,
  • 00:27:40
    that yes, we do reasonably expect to ensure sustained operations,
  • 00:27:45
    because when we weren't able to do it, we fixed that thing
  • 00:27:48
    that kept us from being able to do it. So that's the logic that we're
  • 00:27:52
    building into this and that's the conversations that we'll have with
  • 00:27:56
    you if there are these problems. So we ask you to please just
  • 00:28:00
    be diligent about that, like you're diligent with the rest of the rule and
  • 00:28:04
    stay after it.
  • 00:28:07
    Any questions along those lines?
  • 00:28:17
    Can you go to the next one?
  • 00:28:21
    All right, so we
  • 00:28:25
    really do. And we want to express this. I try to express it frequently.
  • 00:28:28
    We want to thank you and express our appreciation for the effort
  • 00:28:32
    that all of you, most of the folks in this room are the people that
  • 00:28:35
    are kind of compliance administrators, managers, et cetera
  • 00:28:40
    but there's people behind you and your organizations that do all
  • 00:28:43
    this hard work out in the field and we want to express our appreciation
  • 00:28:47
    to them, to you, to everyone that's involved in the program in making
  • 00:28:51
    this successful. So far, from every evidence that we
  • 00:28:54
    can gather, the program has been successful. We want it to continue to
  • 00:28:58
    be successful. And so we'll assist you in
  • 00:29:01
    your compliance efforts and we
  • 00:29:06
    can all feel good about the reliability levels that we collectively
  • 00:29:10
    are providing for the citizens of Texas and the people that get their energy through
  • 00:29:14
    ERCOT.
  • 00:29:17
    Again, the portal will be opened up on November 1 for
  • 00:29:21
    submission of DoWPs
  • 00:29:25
    couple of words on the roles
  • 00:29:28
    that you need to add to your digital certificates. Most of you have done this
  • 00:29:31
    already. We will reiterate that you don't
  • 00:29:35
    want to put both of those roles
  • 00:29:40
    on any one certificate. If you mean for someone to be able to go in
  • 00:29:43
    and look at all your stuff but not be able to act on behalf of
  • 00:29:46
    your family on behalf of your company, then you want to use
  • 00:29:50
    the view role. If the person
  • 00:29:54
    is going to be someone that can act and submit documents or
  • 00:29:58
    respond for your company, then you want to give them the manager one. If you
  • 00:30:01
    give them both, it defaults to the more strict
  • 00:30:04
    one which is the view one. So if you meant for someone
  • 00:30:08
    to be able to respond and you gave them both, they will not
  • 00:30:11
    be able to respond. So please, for the people that you are authorizing
  • 00:30:15
    that you're usa, your User Security Administrator
  • 00:30:20
    has authorized to act on behalf of your company. Make sure that
  • 00:30:23
    they have the manager role
  • 00:30:26
    on their digital certificate and not the other one.
  • 00:30:31
    We will continue to post a lot of documents that we believe are
  • 00:30:35
    helpful, including best practices, et cetera on
  • 00:30:39
    our website there at Winter Weather Readiness. We have a presentation
  • 00:30:43
    later today coming up on best practices from one of our TSPs
  • 00:30:47
    here in Texas. We appreciate that and so
  • 00:30:51
    there's a lot of information that you can find there.
  • 00:30:54
    Please do reach out when you need help. We're happy to
  • 00:30:57
    support you and we do appreciate all that you're doing with
  • 00:31:01
    that. Thank you for your for your excellent services and look
  • 00:31:04
    forward to another successful season together.
  • 00:31:14
    Thank you David for that update. With that we
  • 00:31:18
    will move on to our next presentation the most and
  • 00:31:22
    the highly sought and anticipated the weather
  • 00:31:26
    outlook for the winter 2425.
  • 00:31:29
    We'd like to welcome Chris Coleman to the stage.
  • 00:31:32
    Chris Kasey
  • 00:31:37
    before I go on so I
  • 00:31:41
    do have the ability.
  • 00:32:26
    Can we go back a slide? Can you do that for me?
  • 00:32:31
    Okay, I am ready. Sorry,
  • 00:32:35
    I just wanted to go into this one a little more prepared
  • 00:32:39
    than the last one as far as navigating goes.
  • Item 4 - ERCOT’s Winter Weather forecast - Chris Coleman, ERCOT
    00:32:42
    So I'm Chris Coleman. If anybody hasn't
  • 00:32:46
    yet seen or heard of me, I am.
  • 00:32:50
    Well, I was. I'm about to hit my 12 year anniversary with
  • 00:32:54
    ERCOT. So I was hired in 2012 as ERCOT's
  • 00:32:57
    first meteorologist. But over the last couple of years I
  • 00:33:03
    have acquired a team of meteorologists. So I was the only guy for about
  • 00:33:07
    10 years and now there's
  • 00:33:10
    two meteorologists under me and I'm currently in the process of hiring a third.
  • 00:33:14
    So things have changed quite a bit here to my
  • 00:33:17
    benefit. But I am still the long range
  • 00:33:21
    forecasting guru. So unless something changes
  • 00:33:25
    that I don't currently foresee, you will get
  • 00:33:29
    me not only today, but a year from now
  • 00:33:33
    and years beyond that.
  • 00:33:36
    So today I'm going to review the summer to start. So we're
  • 00:33:40
    going to kind of build up to the winter forecast,
  • 00:33:43
    just showing how this has been a very strange
  • 00:33:49
    weather year and looking into the
  • 00:33:53
    current fall season. Then to set up the winter
  • 00:33:56
    forecast, we're going to review last winter and then
  • 00:33:59
    I'll give you my preliminary winter outlook,
  • 00:34:03
    which I should note is still preliminary for
  • 00:34:06
    about two more weeks. So somewhere about the middle of the month
  • 00:34:10
    it will be published on the ERCOT website.
  • 00:34:13
    And if you have any, if you're not sure where to
  • 00:34:17
    find it or you're looking and you're like, why isn't
  • 00:34:21
    updated yet, you can shoot me an email anytime.
  • 00:34:23
    Chris.coleman.com but it'll be up mid
  • 00:34:26
    month, the final forecast, which shouldn't be a lot different from
  • 00:34:30
    what you'll see today.
  • 00:34:33
    All right, so let's go
  • 00:34:37
    back to this past summer, which you may
  • 00:34:41
    be surprised to know, unless you've already heard this,
  • 00:34:45
    that it was the sixth hottest summer on record
  • 00:34:49
    for the past 130 years, dating back
  • 00:34:54
    to 1895. So your
  • 00:34:58
    whole thinking was, boy, this summer wasn't bad at all. Of course,
  • 00:35:01
    that was because you went through the summer of 2023, which was
  • 00:35:05
    very extreme. It was just about the same level as
  • 00:35:08
    2011, but actually there were more extreme
  • 00:35:13
    hot days in 2023 than 2011
  • 00:35:16
    and you'd gone through 2022, which was the third hottest
  • 00:35:20
    summer on record. So suddenly when you go through all that and you get the
  • 00:35:24
    sixth hottest summer, it's like, oh, what a relief. But it really was
  • 00:35:27
    still quite hot. I have the 100 degree day
  • 00:35:31
    totals there in the bottom right. Again, it doesn't compare
  • 00:35:35
    at all with 2023, but these are all above
  • 00:35:39
    normal 100 degree days totals. Dallas had 23
  • 00:35:43
    this summer. Houston had nine. And compare that again with last year,
  • 00:35:47
    the numbers in parentheses. So in a lot of cases, about half,
  • 00:35:51
    in some cases more than half of the number of 100 degree
  • 00:35:55
    days compared to summer 2023.
  • 00:36:00
    And the temperature anomaly there is at the top right, and it
  • 00:36:03
    shows all the yellows and oranges and reds are all above
  • 00:36:06
    normal temperatures. There's a couple little green areas in East Texas
  • 00:36:11
    that are slightly below normal. But as a whole,
  • 00:36:15
    most of the state was above to well above normal this summer.
  • 00:36:20
    And those middle two charts just show you,
  • 00:36:24
    I think it's the top 10. Yeah, the top 10 hottest summers.
  • 00:36:28
    For mean temperatures, there is the top
  • 00:36:31
    middle and the bottom middle is for minimum temperatures.
  • 00:36:35
    And the reason I put the minimum temperatures in there was because,
  • 00:36:38
    and this probably isn't too surprising if there was any one thing you
  • 00:36:42
    remember from this summer was that it was very humid,
  • 00:36:45
    much more humid than typical Texas
  • 00:36:49
    summer. And that was because it was wet as well. And so it
  • 00:36:53
    was green. And we had more cloud cover, higher dew points,
  • 00:36:57
    and it kept those overnight temperatures up in the morning
  • 00:37:00
    lows. This summer, based on morning lows alone,
  • 00:37:04
    this was the fourth warmest summer all time. So that was really.
  • 00:37:07
    It drove it more than the daytime high. So you had the off peak load
  • 00:37:11
    running definitely higher than typical.
  • 00:37:16
    And I think we'll go on to the next slide. So gives you some idea.
  • 00:37:19
    This was still a top 10 hot this summer, in fact. Oh,
  • 00:37:23
    I can. I gotta do this. Come on,
  • 00:37:27
    come on.
  • 00:37:29
    Oh, no,
  • 00:37:35
    thanks.
  • 00:37:39
    So not only was this a top 10 hottest
  • 00:37:43
    summer, but of the 10 hottest summers in Texas
  • 00:37:47
    weather history, this was the only summer that recorded
  • 00:37:50
    above normal rainfall averaged out across the
  • 00:37:53
    state. So that's what made this a very odd summer. There's generally
  • 00:37:58
    a very strong correlation. When it's dry in the summer,
  • 00:38:01
    it's really hot. When it's not as dry in
  • 00:38:05
    the summer, it's not as hot. Well, this was actually
  • 00:38:08
    a wet summer, wetter than average. And we were top 10
  • 00:38:12
    hottest summer, which has never had before.
  • 00:38:16
    And also to note the stats you see there for June
  • 00:38:20
    through August, I actually just got the finalized September numbers late
  • 00:38:23
    last week. And it actually didn't change anything. It was still the sixth hottest summer
  • 00:38:27
    for mean temperatures and fourth hottest for minimum temperatures,
  • 00:38:31
    whether it's June through August or June through September.
  • 00:38:35
    And then for rainfall, this slide, it was the 75th
  • 00:38:40
    driest on record. So it was basically just middle of the package,
  • 00:38:46
    wetter than most Summers we've had recently and
  • 00:38:49
    you see the precipitation anomaly map there. So it was
  • 00:38:53
    wettest compared to normal over east,
  • 00:38:57
    southeast and south Texas, especially along the
  • 00:39:00
    coast, with some impacts from Burrell of course
  • 00:39:04
    and but most of the western
  • 00:39:08
    2/3 of the state were was dry with some exceptions
  • 00:39:11
    there and that the panhandle. So it was kind of a mix.
  • 00:39:15
    Like I said, it averages out slightly above normal.
  • 00:39:18
    But some people benefited more than others. It was
  • 00:39:22
    generally worse and drought was worse over far west, especially southern
  • 00:39:26
    portions of far west Texas.
  • 00:39:31
    It was the only of the top 20 hottest June through August.
  • 00:39:34
    Okay, so it wasn't just the top 10. I should have looked
  • 00:39:38
    at my bullet point here. I mentioned it was the only summer in
  • 00:39:42
    the top 10 to record above normal rainfall is only in the top 20,
  • 00:39:46
    so that's how rare this is.
  • 00:39:49
    Only three other top 50 hottest summers
  • 00:39:52
    in Texas also recorded above normal rainfall and
  • 00:39:56
    that was 20 this summer, 2010,
  • 00:39:59
    2016 and 1899. Again, this is very,
  • 00:40:03
    very what we experienced this summer with lawn still green in August,
  • 00:40:07
    which is odd in itself. But to have the temperatures we had
  • 00:40:11
    more commonly when we have green lawns in August, you're looking at
  • 00:40:15
    temperatures that are more commonly 95, 98. Not granted
  • 00:40:19
    we weren't 110 like summer 2023, but we're still
  • 00:40:23
    at 100, 102. We would normally would
  • 00:40:26
    have been 3, 4, 5 degrees cooler than
  • 00:40:30
    that with a when you typically have a lawn
  • 00:40:34
    that much greenery, that much green vegetation in the
  • 00:40:37
    summer. All right,
  • 00:40:41
    now onto the fall, which we're almost in the midpoint and
  • 00:40:46
    it shouldn't surprise you that you obviously know this has been a
  • 00:40:50
    very dry month. It's also
  • 00:40:53
    been a very hot, if I can use the word hot for October,
  • 00:40:58
    this would be it. I think it's very likely this
  • 00:41:01
    is going to be recorded
  • 00:41:04
    as the hottest October in Texas weather
  • 00:41:08
    history. I'm certain it's at least top three. And I've
  • 00:41:11
    been tracking Austin stats locally and we're easily tracking
  • 00:41:15
    with the hottest October on record.
  • 00:41:19
    So. But things change. We, we turned off
  • 00:41:23
    the rainfall button here maybe six, eight weeks ago,
  • 00:41:27
    we dried out and we're now more
  • 00:41:30
    above normal compared to normal temperatures than we were at any
  • 00:41:33
    point in the summer. If we would add this pattern a couple of months ago,
  • 00:41:37
    we would have been seeing the 110 degree temperatures
  • 00:41:40
    this summer. So you can look at that. We were. It could
  • 00:41:43
    have been worse. And so we're just experiencing summer
  • 00:41:48
    here in October. So the
  • 00:41:52
    forecast for the remainder of the fall season
  • 00:41:55
    is above normal temperatures that top left map and
  • 00:41:59
    below normal temperatures the bottom right of the two maps on the
  • 00:42:03
    left half of the slide.
  • 00:42:09
    We do have a bit of a pattern change coming here
  • 00:42:15
    late this week actually you'll we'll have a front going through on Halloween
  • 00:42:20
    as you probably heard and we'll get into a wetter pattern into the
  • 00:42:24
    first week, maybe most of the first week in November. Now that doesn't mean it's
  • 00:42:27
    going to rain every day or that we're going to end the drought
  • 00:42:31
    or that we're even going to change the weather pattern. I think this is just
  • 00:42:34
    an anomalous short lived event,
  • 00:42:38
    celebrate it. But I don't think
  • 00:42:41
    we're done being dry and I think we'll return back
  • 00:42:45
    into that pattern but we will get a little bit of a break here
  • 00:42:49
    later in the week. But it still is not going to take temperatures below normal.
  • 00:42:53
    So we're still in that very warm pattern even though it's going
  • 00:42:56
    to get wetter and
  • 00:43:01
    all Right onto. You probably heard some
  • 00:43:07
    reference to entering a La Nina for this
  • 00:43:10
    winter season. The top left
  • 00:43:14
    image shows you what the
  • 00:43:17
    temperature pattern actually that circles a little bit off that.
  • 00:43:20
    I have west of South America along the equator.
  • 00:43:24
    It should be shifted north to be on the equator. But anyhow that shows you
  • 00:43:28
    a year ago, late summer period, it was all
  • 00:43:32
    reds and oranges in that area indicating above normal temperatures which is in El Nino.
  • 00:43:37
    And now we've switched to see the bluer shades that have appeared
  • 00:43:40
    there on the map on the right from about a month ago.
  • 00:43:44
    And so that's the La Nina pattern which is a cool phase along
  • 00:43:48
    the equator. But to note this is unlikely
  • 00:43:52
    to be a strong La Nina as
  • 00:43:56
    far as forecasting goes based on El Ninos and La Ninas
  • 00:44:01
    you're going to have stronger correlations to your typical La
  • 00:44:05
    Nina weather patterns with a strong
  • 00:44:09
    event than a weak event. And this is likely going to be a weak event.
  • 00:44:12
    So I do still think it's going to have some impact but it may allow
  • 00:44:16
    for some not atypical La Nina things to happen.
  • 00:44:20
    And that bottom right graph there just shows
  • 00:44:23
    that those are three month chunks. September,
  • 00:44:26
    October, November, October, November, December. See the third one
  • 00:44:30
    over ndj. November, December, January. That's the
  • 00:44:34
    peak most likely period for La nina,
  • 00:44:37
    right between 75 and 80% likelihood.
  • 00:44:41
    So even this is the NOAA forecast and even though they
  • 00:44:44
    aren't giving 100% chance of a La Nina this
  • 00:44:48
    winter, it's right on the cusp and I think it'll be right on the cusp
  • 00:44:52
    all winter. There'll still be much more of a
  • 00:44:55
    La Nina influence than an El Nino for
  • 00:44:58
    the winter season. And also to note that,
  • 00:45:02
    well, last winter was an El Nino. That was the only one of
  • 00:45:06
    the last five years. So we're returning back to a cycle of La Ninas
  • 00:45:10
    that we've been seeing here in recent years, which have contributed
  • 00:45:15
    to drought, which we had a break from
  • 00:45:18
    that here earlier this year, and we're likely going back into that.
  • 00:45:21
    And La Nina is part of the reason for that.
  • 00:45:26
    All right, so on to last winter. And it was
  • 00:45:30
    the 12th warmest winter on record out of
  • 00:45:33
    129 historical.
  • 00:45:36
    So again, another very warm winter.
  • 00:45:39
    But as we've seen here, this isn't the first
  • 00:45:43
    time we saw this during Uri Elliot.
  • 00:45:46
    Now, we had winter storm Heather mid January this
  • 00:45:49
    past winter. So you had your 12th warmest winters,
  • 00:45:53
    but you had one of the coldest extreme temperatures we've had in recent
  • 00:45:56
    years and decades. So that has
  • 00:46:00
    been an increasingly common theme. And I
  • 00:46:03
    have a slide that'll go into that in further detail.
  • 00:46:08
    We set our peak on the 16th of January.
  • 00:46:12
    On that day, Dallas was 12 degrees,
  • 00:46:15
    Houston 18, Austin 17, San Antonio 19.
  • 00:46:18
    The morning of the 16th in the Valley
  • 00:46:22
    was in the upper 20s. And you go out
  • 00:46:26
    to far west Texas Panhandle region, Lubbock was
  • 00:46:30
    5 degrees. So that was what we expected experienced with Heather.
  • 00:46:34
    And yet we still had the 12th warmest winter on record, which is the map
  • 00:46:38
    on the left. And it was all above normal temperatures outside that
  • 00:46:41
    little random green dot in South Texas south of San Antonio.
  • 00:46:45
    And the precipitation anomaly there
  • 00:46:49
    on the right, you see more greens and blues and
  • 00:46:53
    purples for above normal precipitation last
  • 00:46:57
    winter with the exception south and west. So it
  • 00:47:00
    was mostly warm and it was mostly dry, but we still
  • 00:47:04
    had another cold extreme.
  • 00:47:08
    Oh, and the other note, yeah, it was the 30th wettest on record out of
  • 00:47:12
    129 historical winters. So that compared
  • 00:47:15
    to historical winters, that was actually a very wet
  • 00:47:19
    winter that helped us into the spring and helped us into the summer.
  • 00:47:23
    And this summer would have been a heck of a lot hotter if it wasn't
  • 00:47:26
    for all the rain we had going into it.
  • 00:47:30
    All right, and now I think we're going to get up to my
  • 00:47:34
    forecast for this winter.
  • 00:47:38
    All right. Oh, got one more just to give you an idea how recent winters
  • 00:47:44
    have stacked up in using the
  • 00:47:47
    temperature rankings. So I mentioned this last winter was the 12th
  • 00:47:51
    warmest. That is equates also to the 118th
  • 00:47:54
    coldest. And you can see all those in red,
  • 00:48:00
    those would be in the top third of all historical winters. Take the
  • 00:48:04
    warmest third of the 129 historical.
  • 00:48:08
    And those red ones would fall into that. So mostly,
  • 00:48:12
    most winters we've seen have been in the warmest third over the
  • 00:48:15
    last. I think it was about a dozen years up there.
  • 00:48:19
    We've had a couple exceptions there.
  • 00:48:22
    URI and February 2021,
  • 00:48:25
    that was so intense and lasted much longer in your
  • 00:48:29
    typical cold snap in Texas, that it actually flipped the entire
  • 00:48:33
    winter to the coldest rank,
  • 00:48:35
    ranking into the coldest third. It was the 42nd coldest winter.
  • 00:48:39
    It likely would have been somewhere
  • 00:48:42
    between 80th and 100th coldest winter
  • 00:48:47
    until URI happened. So it was not anything out
  • 00:48:51
    of the ordinary. And URI totally flipped that winter,
  • 00:48:54
    which is much different than what happened in the winter of 2013, 2014.
  • 00:48:58
    The other blue you see up there, which is the 30th coldest
  • 00:49:01
    winter, that was the polar vortex winter where we
  • 00:49:04
    had a front going through every week and it
  • 00:49:09
    had just a lack of warm that winter. And what did not have the cold
  • 00:49:12
    extremes. URI was
  • 00:49:16
    more extreme than anything that happened in 2013, 2014. Elliot,
  • 00:49:19
    Heather, there's two or three others that
  • 00:49:23
    have happened since 2013, 2014 that we've
  • 00:49:27
    had colder extremes than that winter, but that winter ranked colder
  • 00:49:31
    than any of these other winters where we've had these colder extremes.
  • 00:49:35
    So the main difference was you had more frequent cold fronts and a lack of
  • 00:49:38
    warm. And these other recent winters, you had
  • 00:49:41
    most days very warm, mild temperatures.
  • 00:49:44
    And then you get this period where the bottom falls out and
  • 00:49:50
    hopefully we will. Yep. Well, it's still
  • 00:49:53
    coming up here. I said I'll my highlight slide
  • 00:49:57
    of the day. We'll go into that, dig into that a little bit more.
  • 00:50:01
    But you've also seen me showing these temperature rankings
  • 00:50:04
    compared to the last 129, 130 years. Where does this rank
  • 00:50:09
    and the reason I do that? And most meteorologists will speak to you
  • 00:50:13
    using the word normal, everything compared to normal.
  • 00:50:17
    And not that I can completely avoid that,
  • 00:50:20
    but I think it's important to offer another perspective
  • 00:50:24
    because normal. You've likely seen this slide
  • 00:50:27
    before and I'll just update it until you're
  • 00:50:31
    tired of it or I've retired.
  • 00:50:35
    So normal has just. The bar keeps getting raised
  • 00:50:39
    for what normal is. You see, we use a
  • 00:50:43
    15 year normal most commonly at ERCOT.
  • 00:50:46
    So that would be taking the 2009-2023 temperatures
  • 00:50:50
    and averaging them out to come up with a normal.
  • 00:50:55
    But on that previous slide, where you saw all the red. We've had
  • 00:50:58
    so many warm winters recently. What it does is
  • 00:51:01
    it takes that what normal is. And it now
  • 00:51:05
    thinks all these warm winters are normal. So most winters historical
  • 00:51:09
    were not as warm as recent winters.
  • 00:51:13
    So now you only have 37 of the 129
  • 00:51:16
    winters historically qualify as above normal because
  • 00:51:20
    we've had so many warm winters that have fallen in the last 15
  • 00:51:23
    years that have pushed up what normal is.
  • 00:51:28
    Two thirds of the winters now would be a below normal winter historically.
  • 00:51:34
    So it kind of really does skew. And why I have to give
  • 00:51:37
    you this is what it was like last year or this
  • 00:51:41
    is how it's ranked compared to the last 10 years.
  • 00:51:45
    You know, that type of thing. You have to have more of a feel for
  • 00:51:47
    what recent years have been like than just normal.
  • 00:51:53
    All right, this is the slide I wanted to emphasize
  • 00:51:58
    and it's really my talking points point every time I give a winter presentation.
  • 00:52:02
    And it's just been working out perfectly,
  • 00:52:06
    not to my enjoyment or any of our enjoyment that we keep having
  • 00:52:09
    these extreme events. But I'll
  • 00:52:13
    give you a long range seasonal winter weather forecast
  • 00:52:16
    which covers three months, December, January, February. It's a very broad brush. It's not
  • 00:52:20
    intended to capture a two day period
  • 00:52:24
    or a 10 day period of extreme cold.
  • 00:52:30
    But when I give you a very warm, warm anomaly
  • 00:52:33
    of temperature forecast for this winter, as I am going to for this winter,
  • 00:52:37
    that does not mean that you can't get a cold extreme,
  • 00:52:41
    which I've already pointed out. And here's some numbers to back that up.
  • 00:52:45
    So if you look in the middle column
  • 00:52:48
    of those three columns on the slide right below the
  • 00:52:52
    the blue box. So I looked at,
  • 00:52:57
    well, the past eight winters was the chunk I looked
  • 00:53:00
    at and I set a threshold. Dallas had to be 14 degrees
  • 00:53:04
    or colder. Houston 21 or colder. Austin 19 or
  • 00:53:08
    colder. And granted I could have used more cities and
  • 00:53:11
    a larger portion of the state. This is still going to give you what you're
  • 00:53:14
    looking for here with this.
  • 00:53:18
    So using those cold extremes, which are you
  • 00:53:22
    saw on David's slide, it was a 95th percentile that was for it,
  • 00:53:25
    including a wind chill. This is not far from a 95th percentile
  • 00:53:28
    just for air temperature, dry bulb temperature.
  • 00:53:32
    So five of the last eight winters
  • 00:53:36
    last winter, the winter prior URI winter,
  • 00:53:40
    2017, 18, 2016, 17, have met those temperatures,
  • 00:53:43
    temperature thresholds for cold extremes that only happened
  • 00:53:47
    in the previous 25 winters four times. So it's happened
  • 00:53:51
    five of the last eight and four of the previous 25.
  • 00:53:55
    So we've gotten into this period where I've shown
  • 00:53:58
    you most of the winters have been in that warmest, third mild winters.
  • 00:54:02
    But these cold extremes have become more frequent.
  • 00:54:08
    And I don't think we've broken that pattern yet.
  • 00:54:11
    So we still have that same risk. I'll still tell you
  • 00:54:15
    every year that that risk exists. So no matter what I give you for
  • 00:54:18
    a long range forecast, you still have to take
  • 00:54:22
    the mindset that yeah, he's talking broad
  • 00:54:25
    brush there could be that three days of winter
  • 00:54:29
    hell mid January or mid February,
  • 00:54:32
    that it just can't be covered by a long range forecast. But what this
  • 00:54:36
    slide is pointing out is that this has become more frequent
  • 00:54:41
    and things haven't changed with the atmosphere and the climate
  • 00:54:44
    that much here in recent years. For me to say that,
  • 00:54:48
    you know, I think that was anomalous and we'll go back to the more like
  • 00:54:51
    4 out of 25, that's, that's pretty risky.
  • 00:54:56
    So we're still in this pattern. It's still a concern. You can still
  • 00:54:59
    have a mild winter and a cold extreme. And there's plenty of evidence for that.
  • 00:55:03
    I can point out here on this slide,
  • 00:55:07
    the top left there, I broke it down. So I mentioned we have
  • 00:55:10
    a La Nina broke it down. La Nina, neutral El Nino
  • 00:55:14
    and then by sets of years. So when did we have these cold
  • 00:55:17
    extremes occur? Were they more likely during La Nina and El Nino
  • 00:55:22
    or a neutral in between? Since 1950 there's
  • 00:55:26
    a slight lean. 12 of the winters with
  • 00:55:30
    that met those temperature thresholds were La Nina and 8,
  • 00:55:34
    9 for neutral El Nino. But you get more recent,
  • 00:55:37
    you see it starts to shift where La Ninas are becoming more
  • 00:55:41
    common for supporting these cold extremes.
  • 00:55:44
    Since 83, 84 winter, it's happened nine
  • 00:55:47
    times during a La Nina and non La Nina.
  • 00:55:51
    Neutral El Nino combined is six times.
  • 00:55:55
    And actually then since 2016, 17,
  • 00:55:59
    the four extreme cold cases,
  • 00:56:03
    four of the five have occurred during La Nina.
  • 00:56:05
    So we're going into a La Nina likely week.
  • 00:56:09
    But that adds support and just
  • 00:56:12
    knowing that recently, just recent years we've been in this pattern
  • 00:56:16
    with extreme cold periods.
  • 00:56:20
    So I would say there is a greater than average potential for a
  • 00:56:24
    cold extreme this winter. But that doesn't mean I'm forecasting it to happen.
  • 00:56:30
    Think of it like a tornado watch versus
  • 00:56:33
    a tornado warning. So this is a cold weather cold
  • 00:56:36
    extreme watch, which just means that conditions
  • 00:56:40
    are favorable for a cold extreme this winter,
  • 00:56:43
    but isn't necessarily going to happen. But it's,
  • 00:56:46
    it's worth being alert for and probably
  • 00:56:50
    I would still be say Be alert for it every winter. I'm a little more
  • 00:56:53
    concerned than average going into this winter.
  • 00:56:57
    All right,
  • 00:57:01
    now here's the. This is how I build the winter
  • 00:57:05
    forecast. What I do is I look for historical
  • 00:57:09
    similar years. And they're listed.
  • 00:57:13
    You can see them in the top row above
  • 00:57:17
    the maps or larger also above that grid of
  • 00:57:20
    15 maps. Those have changed a little
  • 00:57:24
    bit because. So I initially had my preliminary in September
  • 00:57:28
    and I've been adjusting it before finalizing it here in about
  • 00:57:32
    two weeks. So, for example, you see that 2012, 13,
  • 00:57:36
    I have a strike through on that. So that analog, I was using it,
  • 00:57:41
    which was a nice mild winter analog, but it dropped off.
  • 00:57:45
    So still going through some changes. But all
  • 00:57:49
    those historical similar years give
  • 00:57:53
    you a composite map that looks like what you see on the left.
  • 00:57:57
    Actually, the difference between the top and the bottom map there on the
  • 00:58:01
    left side was I updated the analog
  • 00:58:04
    slightly with the bottom map, so that actually made
  • 00:58:08
    it colder over the southeastern third
  • 00:58:13
    or so of North America, including Texas.
  • 00:58:16
    But again, understand that's just an average of many years.
  • 00:58:20
    And if you have. You could technically have maybe four
  • 00:58:23
    winters that were warm and two that were cold. But if those two cold winters
  • 00:58:27
    were extreme cold, it might outweigh the four
  • 00:58:31
    warm winters when you start averaging things. So you kind of have to be careful
  • 00:58:34
    when you're averaging. In this case,
  • 00:58:37
    I actually have up to 15 winters there. I was looking
  • 00:58:41
    at. Oh, and that little note there,
  • 00:58:44
    you see that arrow pointing the grid of 15
  • 00:58:48
    maps and right below that there's an arrow pointing to the map
  • 00:58:52
    on the bottom right. Second in.
  • 00:58:56
    That's 2016 winter. And the reason I
  • 00:59:00
    point that out is because this fall has looked
  • 00:59:04
    more similar to the fall of 2016 than any
  • 00:59:07
    of the other years I have up there. That would be a good thing
  • 00:59:10
    because that was actually the warmest winter in Texas weather history.
  • 00:59:14
    And we did not have any cold extreme. So.
  • 00:59:18
    Or not like to the. I think we actually did, but it went
  • 00:59:22
    to the level of Elliot, Heather or Uri,
  • 00:59:25
    and that was a very warm winter. But you look at those
  • 00:59:29
    15 maps up there and 15 potential similar winters,
  • 00:59:33
    and it's a hodgepodge. There isn't any one thing that sticks out over Texas.
  • 00:59:37
    You see some that have a lot of red and some that have a lot
  • 00:59:40
    of blue. And there isn't a lot to grab a
  • 00:59:43
    hold of just based on that.
  • 00:59:48
    The other thing to point out from this slide is I want to look at
  • 00:59:50
    the coldest extremes for those analog
  • 00:59:53
    historical matching years. And I used Dallas and
  • 00:59:58
    you See, well, one thing to point out that I didn't
  • 01:00:02
    mention one of the analog years I am using and I'm
  • 01:00:05
    seeing a lot of similarities this year in
  • 01:00:09
    recent months, including the summer is 2020. So that'd be the winner
  • 01:00:13
    of 2020, 2021, February 21, URI. So unfortunately
  • 01:00:16
    that is one of the analog years. I cannot shake but
  • 01:00:20
    understand when I choose an analog,
  • 01:00:23
    you know, two winners are alike and you could have
  • 01:00:27
    most of the winter of 2021 repeat
  • 01:00:31
    this winter minus URI or a lesser
  • 01:00:35
    URI. And it still could be very similar to that.
  • 01:00:39
    Not to say there couldn't be uri. I just don't want it. I don't
  • 01:00:43
    want you to see that and say, oh my gosh,
  • 01:00:46
    the URI alert. I wouldn't be able to give you anything
  • 01:00:50
    close to that detail until you get at least a couple
  • 01:00:54
    weeks in advance for
  • 01:00:57
    any sort of temperature extreme. But there is some support for that. But you see
  • 01:01:01
    again with Dallas, you had some winters there where you didn't get below
  • 01:01:05
    the mid 20s. And then you had URI, of course you
  • 01:01:09
    were minus 2. Otherwise there were mostly between 10
  • 01:01:12
    and 15 degrees. So there
  • 01:01:17
    isn't a lot to gather yet from this.
  • 01:01:20
    The one thing I would point out, you see how I kind of drew around
  • 01:01:24
    that blue line around there. You see it a little
  • 01:01:27
    less so, but I think you still get the same idea with the smaller map.
  • 01:01:31
    I'm just seeing a shape that is indicative
  • 01:01:35
    of a pattern that allows for the Canadian air,
  • 01:01:38
    polar air, to drop south across the plains states
  • 01:01:42
    and into Texas. So you're seeing a little bit of a support with just
  • 01:01:46
    a general pattern forming here for hey,
  • 01:01:49
    this is what can give you a cold shot whether or not
  • 01:01:52
    you get a cold winter.
  • 01:01:57
    So here's the winter forecast. So that does look a little different. Like I said,
  • 01:02:01
    you've got your averaging a lot of years and you can get some strange
  • 01:02:05
    things. I focused on 2016
  • 01:02:09
    and 2019. I still put
  • 01:02:13
    focus on 2020, but especially
  • 01:02:17
    the period up before for URI, not to
  • 01:02:20
    exclude URI, but it was just so extreme. It just did,
  • 01:02:23
    really did a number on the winter as a whole.
  • 01:02:28
    And just knowing you saw the chart where of the last,
  • 01:02:31
    I believe it was 12 winters, you only had a couple
  • 01:02:34
    that were ranked in the coldest third. Almost all
  • 01:02:37
    the rest were in that warmest third. And it's very hard
  • 01:02:41
    to forecast any
  • 01:02:44
    seasonal forecast, winter, summer, otherwise that doesn't
  • 01:02:48
    have a lot of reds on it for above normal temperatures.
  • 01:02:52
    Again I mentioned we still, we keep raising the bar what normal is.
  • 01:02:57
    So, you know, it may be a challenge to keep getting
  • 01:03:00
    above normal. But what you would now maybe
  • 01:03:04
    consider a normal winter would have been a very warm
  • 01:03:07
    winter in the 1970s or 80s. That's kind of
  • 01:03:11
    what has happened here. Regardless, I don't think this winter is going to
  • 01:03:14
    be anything like 2013, 2014, which is the polar vortex. Vortex winter
  • 01:03:18
    where we had fronts almost every week and a
  • 01:03:21
    lack of warm. I think most days this winter are going to be mild
  • 01:03:26
    again. And that's just been the pattern for
  • 01:03:29
    most of the globe here in recent years. It's going
  • 01:03:33
    to take a lot to break that. But that's
  • 01:03:38
    a three month average, that picture, and that's just not necessarily
  • 01:03:41
    going to capture a three, four or
  • 01:03:44
    five day cold extreme period.
  • 01:03:48
    I did put a note there at the bottom because again, I'm still
  • 01:03:51
    in the finalizing stages.
  • 01:03:54
    Recent input data has suggested a colder trend to the forecast.
  • 01:03:58
    While it's unlikely I'll change the forecast to below normal,
  • 01:04:02
    I may consider changing it less warm. I do think the
  • 01:04:05
    overall winter will be above normal, but concerns for cold outbreaks are
  • 01:04:09
    valid. So I may make it look not quite
  • 01:04:13
    as red, especially over East Texas. I could actually
  • 01:04:17
    see it maybe more of a shift westward with
  • 01:04:20
    the warmest extremes, but I don't think I'm going
  • 01:04:23
    to paint that picture blue.
  • 01:04:30
    Now on precipitation for the winter last year
  • 01:04:36
    it was a wet winter, as I pointed out, we were in the top 30
  • 01:04:40
    all time. It was 104th driest.
  • 01:04:43
    But you see, unlike temperatures where you saw most of those
  • 01:04:47
    I labeled red, indicating they
  • 01:04:50
    were in the warmest third of all historical winters, you've got
  • 01:04:53
    a mix. You got the green for the wettest third, you've got brown for the
  • 01:04:56
    driest third and you've got the black, which is the middle third,
  • 01:05:01
    probably a little more that have fallen in the middle third.
  • 01:05:04
    But you don't see where. You see more of a noticeable
  • 01:05:08
    trend. With temperatures where we've just had a lot of warm recently,
  • 01:05:12
    the precipitation has not been as
  • 01:05:17
    consistent of a trend.
  • 01:05:20
    But there is one important note here. So over the past six winters, La Nina
  • 01:05:24
    has resulted in the three driest and
  • 01:05:28
    El Nino has resulted in the three wettest. So there
  • 01:05:31
    is a correlation there. And we're going into a La Nina,
  • 01:05:35
    so that would support it likely falling in the drier
  • 01:05:39
    half than the wetter half.
  • 01:05:45
    And here's the same idea using historical similar
  • 01:05:49
    years to this year. And you
  • 01:05:52
    build a composite with the two maps on the
  • 01:05:56
    right as a preliminary forecast. And the
  • 01:06:00
    one thing I'll say, well, first of all, it's pretty clearly yellow orange,
  • 01:06:04
    which is below normal rainfall or below normal precipitation,
  • 01:06:08
    frozen precipitation types as well for the winter
  • 01:06:13
    season, I would say that that
  • 01:06:16
    is much more pronounced than the temperatures. If you
  • 01:06:20
    look at those 15 maps, which are all just potential analog
  • 01:06:23
    years, you'll have a hard time finding
  • 01:06:26
    much green over Texas. There's.
  • 01:06:30
    There's probably three times as much oranges
  • 01:06:34
    and browns and reds over Texas, meaning below normal
  • 01:06:37
    precipitation with these historical similar years
  • 01:06:41
    than there is green. So there's more confidence in
  • 01:06:46
    the precipitation forecast for this winter, which is
  • 01:06:49
    dry, than the temperature forecast, which it's
  • 01:06:53
    above normal. I still think that's a good possibility, but there could
  • 01:06:56
    be some volatility to those temperatures.
  • 01:07:00
    I did also want to look at what happened with frozen
  • 01:07:04
    precipitation or snowfall in particular. Actually there's very
  • 01:07:08
    poor weather data for freezing rain
  • 01:07:11
    and sleet and those types of things. But for
  • 01:07:15
    snow in Dallas, just to see if there was any sort of consistent
  • 01:07:19
    trend, you see kind of a wide range.
  • 01:07:23
    The URI winter was 5 inches
  • 01:07:26
    of snow in Dallas, which is more than the all time average.
  • 01:07:31
    You see three of those winters were just a trace.
  • 01:07:34
    And that 77, 78 winter, that was actually the
  • 01:07:38
    most snow ever recorded over a winter in dfw.
  • 01:07:42
    So interestingly, that is one of the. There's.
  • 01:07:46
    What we're seeing here in 2024 is, has a lot of similarities
  • 01:07:49
    to what we saw in 1977,
  • 01:07:53
    but that doesn't mean it's going to happen exactly like that. And you're going to
  • 01:07:56
    get a foot and a half of snow in Dallas. But again,
  • 01:07:59
    just throwing that out there, that's an analog, but there isn't.
  • 01:08:02
    There is good consistency. I think there's plenty there to say this
  • 01:08:06
    is likely going to be a dry summer or dry winter.
  • 01:08:10
    I don't think there's enough there that you can say it's going to be a
  • 01:08:13
    snowy winter or a non snowy winter for Dallas.
  • 01:08:22
    And there is the preliminary
  • 01:08:25
    winter precipitation outlook. So below
  • 01:08:29
    normal precipitation for most of the state, with a couple exceptions
  • 01:08:34
    east and south. The update, though recent input
  • 01:08:38
    data has done little to change the dry forecast as of today, the only change
  • 01:08:42
    I would consider from the preliminary map on the left would be to drop
  • 01:08:45
    the valley a category drier. So I'm seeing a little more
  • 01:08:49
    support for dry as I'm moving towards finalizing this.
  • 01:08:53
    I said I may trend the temperatures not quite as warm.
  • 01:08:57
    I may trend the precipitation drier. So if
  • 01:09:01
    I was to give you some hint as where I'M leaning here over the last
  • 01:09:04
    couple weeks. That's what you may see change and
  • 01:09:10
    the drought outlook as you can imagine it's gotten a lot worse
  • 01:09:13
    here quickly from where things
  • 01:09:17
    looked heading into September to where they are here finishing
  • 01:09:21
    up. October is dramatically different.
  • 01:09:24
    We now as of last week or a
  • 01:09:28
    couple weeks ago, you have 86% of the state with drought impacts
  • 01:09:32
    and it's only increased since that number 55 of this percent
  • 01:09:36
    of the state with moderate or drought, moderate drought or worse.
  • 01:09:41
    And this is developed really over the most for most of the state
  • 01:09:45
    with exceptions especially far west, they've been a longer term drought. Most of
  • 01:09:48
    the eastern half to two thirds of the state has
  • 01:09:52
    developed here over the last six weeks, six, eight weeks. And now
  • 01:09:56
    the drought is as bad as it's been. You have to
  • 01:09:59
    go back to last November. So it's been almost a year ago. It was the
  • 01:10:01
    last time we were at this level with the drought.
  • 01:10:06
    And again my precipitation outlook which is
  • 01:10:09
    supported by La Nina and what we're seeing this fall,
  • 01:10:14
    it would suggest that the drought concerns are likely only only
  • 01:10:18
    going to get greater heading into next spring.
  • 01:10:24
    And we made it to the end.
  • 01:10:28
    So the preliminary forecast, mostly mild
  • 01:10:32
    and dry. There's likely going
  • 01:10:35
    to be some exceptions. Whether or not that's a cold extreme we'll finalize
  • 01:10:39
    as we get closer to that period.
  • 01:10:42
    But I don't think as a whole. Winter as
  • 01:10:46
    a whole is not going to be a lot different than what we've seen in
  • 01:10:49
    recent winter. There's a lot of warm days.
  • 01:10:53
    Recent winter trends suggest cold outbreak impacting Texas is possible again
  • 01:10:56
    this winter. La Nina supports that more than El Nino.
  • 01:11:00
    But by saying that does not mean I'm predicting it. It's just the conditions
  • 01:11:04
    are in place for greater than average support for
  • 01:11:08
    a cold outbreak. Drought could be a greater
  • 01:11:11
    concern. I'd say it's likely to become a greater concern heading
  • 01:11:15
    into next spring than it was this last spring. Last spring,
  • 01:11:19
    that drought picture, we had only 23% of the state
  • 01:11:23
    being impacted by drought. We're at 80% now
  • 01:11:27
    and I don't think there's going to be a lot of opportunities to improve it.
  • 01:11:31
    So we're going to be heading into next spring with
  • 01:11:36
    a lot different pattern than this last spring. Which means if
  • 01:11:39
    we don't flip the pattern wet then
  • 01:11:43
    I know I'm looking out beyond winter, but that's even hotter potential for
  • 01:11:46
    next May, June, July,
  • 01:11:49
    August. Yeah.
  • 01:11:54
    The other thing which I mentioned at least 10 times every
  • 01:11:57
    winter should be accompanied by the mindset for a period of extreme cold because
  • 01:12:01
    it happens sometimes on a cold winter, but it's happened
  • 01:12:05
    especially recently in a mild winter. And I'm giving you a mild winter forecast
  • 01:12:09
    and again, it'll be finalized here in about two weeks. And if you
  • 01:12:13
    are Chris, help me find it or where is it
  • 01:12:17
    or when is it going to be published?
  • 01:12:19
    Chris.colemanrcat.com that's it. Thanks.
  • 01:12:28
    Thank you very much Chris for that wonderful insights on
  • 01:12:32
    the preliminary cold weather outlook. With that,
  • Item 5 - BREAK - All
    01:12:36
    we will take a quick break and we will be back
  • 01:12:40
    to this room at 2pm with Mike Brinkman's
  • 01:12:44
    presentation. Thank you.
  • 01:30:41
    All right, welcome back everyone. Before we start
    EditCreate clip
  • Item 6 - Market Participant Spotlight – Mike Brinkman, Pedernales Electric Coop, Inc
    01:30:45
    our next presentation, I'd like to introduce
  • 01:30:48
    our guest speaker, Michael Brinkman. He is a
  • 01:30:52
    substation and transmission maintenance manager with Petanalis Electric
  • 01:30:56
    Co Op dedicated substation and transmission
  • 01:30:59
    maintenance manager over 25 years in the electric
  • 01:31:03
    utility industry industry. He has proven expertise
  • 01:31:06
    in substation design, construction, maintenance,
  • 01:31:09
    protection and control. Name it, he has the expertise on it.
  • 01:31:13
    Passionate about ensuring a reliable and efficient electric kit.
  • 01:31:17
    Currently leading a team at PEC leveraging his
  • 01:31:21
    management skills to drive operational excellence and deliver exceptional
  • 01:31:25
    service to their customers. With that, I'd like
  • 01:31:28
    to welcome Mike bring them to the stage. Mike,
  • 01:31:40
    thank you for that invitation. Also very appreciative to
  • 01:31:43
    (item:6.1:PEC Winter Preparedness)be here. Thank you for the invite to present today. This is
  • 01:31:47
    the winter preparedness for PEC. So in order for
  • 01:31:51
    us to meet Rule 16.25.5 by December
  • 01:31:55
    1st each year, we confirmed the operability of
  • 01:31:59
    substation systems and subsystems containing cold weather critical
  • 01:32:03
    components by confirming sulfur hexafluoride gas
  • 01:32:06
    and breakers and circuit switches is correct pressure and temperature.
  • 01:32:10
    That way it operates correctly during emergency winter
  • 01:32:15
    emergencies. Also we perform annual maintenance that test sulfur
  • 01:32:19
    hexafluoride gas and breakers also perform the
  • 01:32:23
    heaters make sure they're operable as well and
  • 01:32:27
    all the circuitry to operate correctly is also
  • 01:32:32
    confirmed. Inspection of heaters
  • 01:32:36
    and control cabinets very critical that we inspect those.
  • 01:32:39
    Verification of main tank oil levels are appropriate for
  • 01:32:44
    all actual oil temperatures. Also bushing filled
  • 01:32:50
    sorry inspection bushing oil levels, making sure that the oil
  • 01:32:53
    levels and bushings are to the proper level.
  • 01:32:56
    Nitrogen pressures also on transformers are at
  • 01:33:00
    the proper pressure and verification of oil quality such as moisture
  • 01:33:04
    dissolved gas within acceptable ranges for winter conditions.
  • 01:33:08
    Next, so monthly PEC
  • 01:33:11
    inspects every one of our substations every
  • 01:33:16
    month. So we have two substation inspectors that will go and
  • 01:33:19
    inspect three to four substations each day.
  • 01:33:23
    Anything that is found this discrepancy is reported.
  • 01:33:28
    Work orders are created. That way they can be corrected as
  • 01:33:32
    soon as possible. There's a priority that we have
  • 01:33:35
    a list of things depending on what the need is or what the damaged equipment
  • 01:33:39
    is, how quick it needs to be repaired, or if it can be scheduled
  • 01:33:43
    as a planned maintenance. Next one,
  • 01:33:47
    please.
  • 01:33:52
    So here is a photo of our battery chargers
  • 01:33:55
    and one of our battery banks. So that is also monthly inspection where we're inspecting
  • 01:33:59
    the float voltage, making sure that the float voltage is in the proper range.
  • 01:34:03
    Also looking for any DC grounds which all of our battery chargers have
  • 01:34:06
    indication if there's a DC ground present that our
  • 01:34:10
    inspectors will notify.
  • 01:34:14
    Also checking the cell voltage, the specific cell gravity electrolytes
  • 01:34:18
    in the batteries, the condition of the cell. The condition is a verbal or visual
  • 01:34:22
    inspection. So any cracks, any kind of
  • 01:34:26
    low liquid levels, anything like that, that's noted as well.
  • 01:34:30
    The current on the battery charger is at acceptable level as well.
  • 01:34:33
    That's something that is inspected and then condition of the battery
  • 01:34:36
    rack. So the battery racks are very important that they're corrosion free and
  • 01:34:40
    they are grounded as well. All the battery chargers are on
  • 01:34:44
    SCADA control or SCADA monitor where they're monitored 24 7.
  • 01:34:47
    So if anything falls outside of tolerance, we get alarms immediately
  • 01:34:51
    and then we respond immediately as well.
  • 01:34:55
    This is a timer and timer's on the top photo there.
  • 01:34:58
    And the next photo is the actual exhaust venture. So that's
  • 01:35:02
    our battery room. So verify the operation of the forced air
  • 01:35:05
    vent that is operating properly and also the timer is set
  • 01:35:09
    correctly. So and then the inspection of fresh air filters.
  • 01:35:13
    If it's quipped, some of our stations don't. We don't really have the return air,
  • 01:35:17
    but it is built into this newer substations, so older substations,
  • 01:35:20
    heavier forced air. This is a
  • 01:35:25
    inspection for transformer and breaker bushing oil
  • 01:35:28
    levels. So you can kind of see the oil over there in the side glass
  • 01:35:31
    of that bushing. So that's a visual inspect that we do
  • 01:35:35
    have oil inside of those side glasses and all the bushings that are on transformers
  • 01:35:39
    and breakers. This is one
  • 01:35:43
    of our power banks that we inspect as well.
  • 01:35:47
    So we inspect both the power banks and auto. Actually that's an auto transformer
  • 01:35:50
    at one of our substations, but there's several different component
  • 01:35:54
    levels that we inspect on that. So bushing oil levels, which you can see all
  • 01:35:57
    the sight glasses there. Also there's a main tank oil level gauge
  • 01:36:00
    that's on all of our units. That lets us know the oil level gauge or
  • 01:36:04
    the oil level. And that way it's reported if it's not at
  • 01:36:07
    acceptable level. The LTC is also has an oil level gauge on
  • 01:36:11
    it. There's a desiccant on the LTC that is also
  • 01:36:14
    checked that it has the right amount of desiccant
  • 01:36:18
    in it. It is of the right color. We also have oil
  • 01:36:21
    filtration pumps that are on some of our units. The oil filtration pump
  • 01:36:25
    is for the ltc. There's operation hours that those pumps are supposed to
  • 01:36:28
    run so many hours each month that way it filters oil, keeps it
  • 01:36:32
    clean. We also have limit liquid temperature winding temperature
  • 01:36:36
    gauges on the transformer that we record the present value and
  • 01:36:40
    the max value that we've seen on those transformers. All that's
  • 01:36:44
    recorded as well in our maintenance software.
  • 01:36:47
    LTC position min max is also recorded.
  • 01:36:51
    That way we can perform verify the LTCs are performing like
  • 01:36:55
    they're supposed to. Nitrogen pressure again
  • 01:36:59
    and then also nitrogen supply. So there's an actual supply tank on
  • 01:37:02
    the transformer that maintains the oil. The sorry maintains the
  • 01:37:07
    nitrogen pressure for the tank for the transformer.
  • 01:37:11
    If for some reason that gets out of parameter, it's also monitored by SCADA.
  • 01:37:15
    So that's something that's 24 7. If it gets out of the
  • 01:37:18
    parameters, then we're notified. Cabinet heaters,
  • 01:37:22
    they're operable in our cabinets there.
  • 01:37:25
    Coolant fans are also checked monthly by our inspectors
  • 01:37:29
    and radiators brave instructions. The birds love
  • 01:37:32
    to build nests inside radiators. So nice warm areas.
  • 01:37:35
    So we have to clean those out pretty routinely.
  • 01:37:39
    So there is a picture there of kind of the coolant
  • 01:37:43
    fans. That's what we're inspecting each month.
  • 01:37:46
    We like we turn them on, make sure they do come on when asked to
  • 01:37:49
    do so. And then they're also free of any kind of burdenness.
  • 01:38:01
    There is a instrument gauge for SF6
  • 01:38:05
    gas. So SF6 gas is also something that is verified
  • 01:38:09
    each month that the pressures are at adequate levels.
  • 01:38:13
    And also the cabinet heaters again for these
  • 01:38:16
    circuit breakers and circuit switchers, they're verified that they're operable.
  • 01:38:19
    And then this is another point where SCADA monitors the SF6
  • 01:38:23
    gas. So anytime it gets out of its program
  • 01:38:27
    parameters, it will alarm and then we respond
  • 01:38:31
    as necessary.
  • 01:38:37
    So as far as our relays go, monthly inspections on the relays are
  • 01:38:41
    done as well from our subsection inspectors verify
  • 01:38:45
    the substate or the trip circuitry is the
  • 01:38:49
    reset light is reset. It's the RS and the EN for the enabled light.
  • 01:38:54
    So there's lights on the relays that basically let you know that they're in
  • 01:38:57
    service. An operable Reset enabled and ready to
  • 01:39:01
    perform as desired. This is also something that
  • 01:39:05
    is monitored by our SCADA. So anytime a relay
  • 01:39:09
    fails or goes into alarm or something again is outside of parameters,
  • 01:39:13
    it goes back to our SCADA team and they notify us as well.
  • 01:39:16
    247 so a couple other to verify
  • 01:39:20
    the control circuitry. There is a. It doesn't show it on this picture.
  • 01:39:24
    Well it does through the top control switch. You see the two red
  • 01:39:27
    lights. So those red lights present is a good indication that your
  • 01:39:31
    trip circuitry is intact and ready to respond in the
  • 01:39:34
    event of a fault.
  • 01:39:43
    So another point that we inspect a lot of our switches. These are
  • 01:39:47
    gang operated three phase gang operated switches. You can see the bird
  • 01:39:50
    nest there that is built. So we have to clean those out regularly as
  • 01:39:54
    well. The birds attract snakes
  • 01:39:57
    and snakes get on equipment and doesn't work so good. So those
  • 01:40:01
    are the things we maintain to keep the birds out.
  • 01:40:04
    Capacitor banks, another point of inspection. So all
  • 01:40:07
    these capacitors, individual capacitors, are oil filled. So a visual
  • 01:40:11
    inspection for any kind of bulging, any kind of oil leaks, anything of that
  • 01:40:15
    nature, any broken parts is inspected visually.
  • 01:40:18
    And we also have protective relays that will protect the
  • 01:40:24
    cab banks in the event of a voltage distribute or voltage differential.
  • 01:40:28
    Any kind of failure on of individual cat bake, the relays will pick it
  • 01:40:31
    up and take it out of service. That's another point that's also
  • 01:40:34
    SCADA monitored. So for all that all
  • 01:40:38
    of our maintenance records we do have a maintenance database that
  • 01:40:42
    every one of these points that I just went through are monitor.
  • 01:40:46
    Every point that went through that's monitored and inspected is also recorded
  • 01:40:50
    into our maintenance database. So we have training records of all
  • 01:40:54
    of our equipment to where if something is we feel it's
  • 01:40:57
    getting out of parameters, we can always go back and look at its past performance
  • 01:41:01
    and see if it is out of out of tolerance and corrected as needed.
  • 01:41:07
    And lastly there's one more slide. And then of
  • 01:41:11
    course the preparedness training for all of our technicians
  • 01:41:15
    and substation or transmission personnel as well. It's done each
  • 01:41:18
    year as well. So training of all operational personnel for winter weather
  • 01:41:22
    preparedness is mandatory. And if anybody has misses one
  • 01:41:26
    of the classes they have to make it up. So it's part of our process
  • 01:41:29
    that we ensure that all of our technicians and
  • 01:41:32
    transmission personnel has been trained and documented.
  • 01:41:38
    And with that, pretty much that's the rundown of what we do
  • 01:41:42
    for our winter preparedness inspections.
  • 01:41:45
    Any questions?
  • 01:41:49
    Yes sir. If you had to pick
  • 01:41:52
    one or two areas where you see the most
  • 01:41:56
    challenges what might they be the
  • 01:42:00
    most challenges as far as preparing for the winter or
  • 01:42:04
    even areas that you think are most likely to fail?
  • 01:42:11
    In all honesty, for any kind of real weather event, as far as
  • 01:42:15
    the substation goes, I don't see anything that typically is going to fail
  • 01:42:19
    from our side of the house, being just a
  • 01:42:22
    transmission provider, a lot of our equipment is built
  • 01:42:26
    to withstand temperatures well below 100,
  • 01:42:29
    you know, 30 degrees -30 degrees C.
  • 01:42:32
    So the equipment started designed to perform
  • 01:42:36
    inside of any kind of weather conditions we've experienced thus
  • 01:42:40
    far. So answers your question.
  • 01:42:45
    Yeah, I think so.
  • 01:42:50
    Do you, for example, SF6 gas.
  • 01:42:54
    I don't know if you use nitrogen gas anywhere. Do you
  • 01:42:57
    see much in terms of fluctuation of those
  • 01:43:01
    pressures when it gets cold out?
  • 01:43:04
    No, they pretty much stay within range.
  • 01:43:08
    Within, you know, it's a small percentage. I'd say, you know,
  • 01:43:11
    35% fluctuation, but that's well inside of a
  • 01:43:14
    tolerance of what's recommended by manufacturers.
  • 01:43:17
    So, yeah, nitrogen. Nitrogen pressure that
  • 01:43:21
    we keep on our power banks to mitigate moisture.
  • 01:43:25
    Those all stay, you know, 1 to 2 psi positive and
  • 01:43:29
    they maintain as designed. There's pressure
  • 01:43:33
    regulators and things of that nature so we can
  • 01:43:36
    turn on and turn off nitrogen as needed.
  • 01:43:43
    Anything else?
  • 01:43:46
    All right, well, again, thank you very much for having us today. I appreciate it.
  • 01:43:56
    Thank you very much, Mike, for that insightful presentation
  • 01:43:59
    and sharing all the good strategies and best practices
  • 01:44:03
    done by Paranalis Electric Co Op. With that,
  • Item 7 - TSP Winter Inspection Checklist - Inspectors, ERCOT
    01:44:07
    I would like to move over to our final presentation
  • 01:44:11
    of the day. Once again, as I
  • 01:44:15
    have stated in the beginning, it might be a refresher for some
  • 01:44:18
    of you. However, with each checklist question,
  • 01:44:22
    you will see a lot of best practices that our weatherization
  • 01:44:26
    inspectors will be providing to the audience.
  • 01:44:31
    Also, one more item. We have a tradition over here at
  • 01:44:35
    weatherization inspection. Whenever we have a new
  • 01:44:39
    member in the weatherization inspection team,
  • 01:44:42
    we like to have them introduced. With that, I'd like to welcome
  • 01:44:45
    Dennis Horton to the podium. So Dennis joined
  • 01:44:49
    us in August of this year. Located out
  • 01:44:53
    of Lubbock, Texas, prior to ERCOT,
  • 01:44:56
    Dennis had 20 years of electrical generation experience,
  • 01:45:00
    six years in the field operations, and 14 years as
  • 01:45:03
    a licensed control room operator. He's a veteran
  • 01:45:07
    of the U. United States Marine Corps,
  • 01:45:10
    four years in troop leadership, and a Gulf War veteran.
  • 01:45:13
    He is assigned for the Far west weather region.
  • 01:45:17
    With that, I'd like to welcome Dennis. Dennis, welcome.
  • 01:45:20
    And thank you very much for your service. Thank you. Thank you.
  • Item 7.1 - Pete Godswill - Program Analyst II
    01:45:25
    Now I'd like to welcome God's Will Peter on
  • 01:45:29
    the stage to start up our Presentation. Thank you.
  • 01:45:38
    Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Godswill or
  • 01:45:42
    Will. I am a. I'm the Program
  • 01:45:45
    analyst here at ERCOT and I've been here since November 1st of last year.
  • 01:45:51
    I have a Bachelor's in Civil and Geophysical Engineering,
  • 01:45:54
    as it says on there, and I pursued a Master's in Renewable
  • 01:45:58
    Energy. As we go into
  • 01:46:02
    the winter 24 inspection season, the checklist
  • 01:46:06
    has been developed by ERCOT in accordance with the
  • 01:46:09
    PUC, predominantly subsection SOx
  • 01:46:13
    1. As it says on there, we at ERCOT
  • 01:46:17
    will not be responsible or will not provide any legal
  • 01:46:21
    interpretation of what the Weather Emergency Preparedness
  • 01:46:25
    Checklist might say. The inspection schedule
  • 01:46:29
    is confidential and is limited only to the Commission and of course us at
  • 01:46:32
    ERCOT.
  • 01:46:36
    The inspection season will begin December
  • 01:46:40
    2nd and will run through February 28th,
  • 01:46:43
    2025. Within those who are within that time frame, we will
  • 01:46:47
    not be inspecting according to those holidays mentioned
  • 01:46:51
    down there as our inspectors and as anticipated,
  • 01:46:55
    the market participants will be observing these holidays as well.
  • Item 7.2 - Kevin harris - Weatherization Inspector Lead
    01:46:59
    With all that being said, I would like to welcome Kevin Harris to this stage,
  • 01:47:02
    please. Thank you.
  • 01:47:09
    Thanks, Will. So I've been with ERCOT since
  • 01:47:13
    November 2022, currently assigned to the coastal region,
  • 01:47:17
    and for this winter I have recently acquired
  • 01:47:21
    part of the South Central region as well. So I'll
  • 01:47:25
    be a new face in that some portion of that region
  • 01:47:30
    starting this winter.
  • 01:47:34
    So, first item we're going to talk about is
  • 01:47:38
    the creation of your list of your cold weather critical components,
  • 01:47:42
    the review of that list, which has to be done annually and update as necessary.
  • 01:47:46
    For most of you, this is going to be nothing new. This is the second
  • 01:47:49
    winter in which this cold weather critical component was a requirement
  • 01:47:53
    if we have any new transmission providers. Being that
  • 01:47:57
    this is possibly your first inspection under 2555,
  • 01:48:03
    what we ask is that you be real
  • 01:48:06
    critical when you take a look at your components. We ask that you take that
  • 01:48:10
    list of components, take a look at the definition within 2555 for
  • 01:48:13
    weather critical component, and develop your list
  • 01:48:17
    using that definition. For those
  • 01:48:20
    of you who've already developed a list back in 2023,
  • 01:48:24
    obviously every year it requires an annual review of that list.
  • 01:48:29
    So what we expect to see there is some documentation stating
  • 01:48:33
    that that list has been reviewed and if any updates were made,
  • 01:48:37
    what we'd like to see is a copy of that list plus the list in
  • 01:48:40
    which you've revised from
  • 01:48:44
    some of the best ways we saw to ensure
  • 01:48:48
    that annual review was done. Winter preparation or
  • 01:48:53
    preseason prep documents that you may have, that you may use,
  • 01:48:57
    we've seen that review Captured
  • 01:49:00
    within that document, we've seen checklists that were
  • 01:49:04
    performed under that document showing that that list
  • 01:49:08
    was reviewed on an annual basis with
  • 01:49:12
    a date as to when that review was complete, which obviously
  • 01:49:16
    that date would have to be prior to December 1st.
  • 01:49:26
    Okay, thank you. So the next one we're Talking is FOXTROT1
  • 01:49:30
    Alpha I, which is confirmation of operability of all systems and subsystems
  • 01:49:34
    containing all cold weather critical components. Get questions on
  • 01:49:37
    what is systems and subsystems. Those can be DC systems,
  • 01:49:41
    your H VAC systems, battery systems,
  • 01:49:45
    any backup power systems, cooling system, oil systems.
  • 01:49:48
    Those are just some examples of systems I have seen where
  • 01:49:52
    cold weather critical components were a portion of that system.
  • 01:49:56
    Again, we're looking at documentation here show
  • 01:50:00
    that the operability of that system prior to the winter season and throughout the winter
  • 01:50:05
    as it goes. You know,
  • 01:50:08
    Mike talked about pertinent they do they take a
  • 01:50:12
    look at this on a monthly basis.
  • 01:50:16
    That's a very good idea. I know there's some out there who do
  • 01:50:19
    them every other month, which is fine as
  • 01:50:23
    long as you do something, you know, do some during the winter season,
  • 01:50:26
    at least prior to the start of the winter season. I have
  • 01:50:30
    seen some that do these inspections.
  • 01:50:34
    They do it weekly, all year long and
  • 01:50:39
    they send a different station inspector or
  • 01:50:45
    station personnel to go look at that equipment, just to put a
  • 01:50:49
    separate set of eyes on that equipment. So it doesn't become common
  • 01:50:53
    for the same person looking at the same stuff over and over again.
  • 01:50:55
    So it's a pretty good practice there as well.
  • Item 7.3 - Darryl Nitschke - Weatherization Inspector Lead
    01:51:01
    With that, I'd like to welcome Darryl Nitschke
  • 01:51:05
    to this podium.
  • 01:51:10
    Thank you, Kevin. My name is Darryl Nitschke. I'm the North Central Weather
  • 01:51:14
    Zone inspector. I've been with ERCOT for one year now.
  • 01:51:19
    My background is power generation,
  • 01:51:21
    thermal, both coal fired, natural gas fired
  • 01:51:24
    facilities. Next slide please.
  • 01:51:30
    So moving on to section F1A2 of the
  • 01:51:33
    rule which requires confirmation of SF6 gas pressure and
  • 01:51:37
    temperature and breakers and other electrical equipment
  • 01:51:41
    and verification of heater operation.
  • 01:51:44
    So TSP should have preseason and monthly
  • 01:51:48
    inspection records of SF6 gas pressure and
  • 01:51:51
    temperature and preseason inspection records confirming
  • 01:51:55
    SF6 breaker heater operation.
  • 01:51:59
    Heater operation would include breaker panel
  • 01:52:03
    heaters and SF6 gas tank heaters if installed.
  • 01:52:07
    One best practice that we have seen is
  • 01:52:11
    breaker SF6 pressure versus temperature charts actually
  • 01:52:15
    installed in the breaker panels for reference during inspections
  • 01:52:20
    by your patrolman or our weatherization inspectors.
  • 01:52:25
    Next slide.
  • 01:52:29
    So moving on to transformers now, section F1A3
  • 01:52:33
    covers confirmation of operability of transformers and winter
  • 01:52:37
    weather emergencies. Section F1A3
  • 01:52:41
    1 requires confirmation of transformer control cabinet
  • 01:52:44
    heaters. So TSP should have again,
  • 01:52:48
    preseason and monthly inspection records confirming heater
  • 01:52:52
    inspections and verification of functionality of those heaters.
  • 01:52:58
    So during our inspections, we'll cover the last two items.
  • 01:53:02
    We'll look at breaker pressures, we'll look at transformer
  • 01:53:07
    control cabinet heaters as well as the third
  • 01:53:10
    item, which is section F1A3 2 confirmation
  • 01:53:15
    of transformer main oil tank levels. So again,
  • 01:53:18
    TSP should have a record of preseason
  • 01:53:23
    and monthly inspection records confirming oil
  • 01:53:27
    tank levels and transformers.
  • 01:53:30
    Want to verify that the oil level is appropriate for the
  • 01:53:34
    oil temperature at the time of the inspection.
  • 01:53:38
    That's, that's it for those three items. Pretty straightforward items.
  • Item 7.4 - Jake Jacobs - Weatherization Inspector, Sr
    01:53:41
    And with that, I'll welcome Jake Jacobs.
  • 01:53:55
    I want to take a little bit of a different spin on things, put my
  • 01:53:59
    boss on the spot for a second. One of the things that our management challenges
  • 01:54:03
    us to do is to provide context to the jobs we're doing.
  • 01:54:07
    Market participants know what to do, and certainly we're watching
  • 01:54:11
    for compliance, for how to do it. But sometimes we need to kind of sit
  • 01:54:14
    back and think about why. So, Raihan,
  • 01:54:17
    this is the model that you taught us from Decker Communications.
  • 01:54:21
    All right, so I'm going to tell you guys a story. In 1996, I left
  • 01:54:24
    the Marine Corps and my first job was with this gentleman sitting right over
  • 01:54:27
    here to my right, Mr. Jerry Bible. He was my boss for three years.
  • 01:54:31
    He was a substation lead electrician, and I was his helper.
  • 01:54:35
    And he tried his best to teach me everything he could, but I got in
  • 01:54:38
    trouble a lot. Remember some of the times,
  • 01:54:41
    pretty rough. Right. So the reason
  • 01:54:45
    I'm bringing that up is when I came back into
  • 01:54:49
    or left the offices of ERCOT and came back into the field as a weatherization
  • 01:54:53
    inspector, one of my first inspections was back with Jerry again,
  • 01:54:57
    26, 28 years later. And the context
  • 01:55:00
    I'm adding to this is that all of us are ERCOT together. And Jerry
  • 01:55:04
    and I didn't know in 1996 that we were part of ERCOT.
  • 01:55:08
    We were checking voltage regulators on 12kV lines in a
  • 01:55:12
    truck late at night because there's an outage. We didn't understand that we were ERCOT,
  • 01:55:15
    but we were. So the big picture
  • 01:55:19
    here is whether we're, you know, foreign owned resources.
  • 01:55:22
    And Juan, you've got some experience with dealing with foreign owned resources or
  • 01:55:26
    whether we're out of state contractors. Bill and your
  • 01:55:30
    group, we appreciate it. Or whether we're the people in the building at Taylor.
  • 01:55:33
    All of us are together. We're All ERCOT moving forward.
  • 01:55:37
    So the topic I want to cover is F1A3 bushing
  • 01:55:41
    oil level. I'll talk about some of the things we're looking for
  • 01:55:44
    and then some best practices.
  • 01:55:48
    We keep reiterating that the more specific and robust the inspection
  • 01:55:51
    checklists are, the better the market participants will show compliance
  • 01:55:55
    with the code. And so I want to constantly advocate that, just like what the
  • 01:55:58
    other inspectors are saying. So what I'll be looking for with
  • 01:56:02
    a bushing oil level is the site gauge or the oil level indicators
  • 01:56:07
    need to be clean, clear and weatherproof. We don't want to see
  • 01:56:10
    cracks because if moisture can get in, water can get in that we have problems.
  • 01:56:13
    Also, oil can leak out. The bushing exterior needs
  • 01:56:18
    to be very good integrity, not cracked. As few
  • 01:56:22
    foreign materials on it as possible. I know that's hard. In some
  • 01:56:25
    stations, like concrete plants, it's difficult. But as
  • 01:56:28
    much as possible, temperature depending.
  • 01:56:31
    The oil should be at about mid level in the sight glass.
  • 01:56:35
    We know that that changes when it's extremely hot or extremely cold.
  • 01:56:39
    Most of all, we have to be able to that oil level. If the glass
  • 01:56:42
    is clouded, then the technicians at the
  • 01:56:45
    station will have to show us how they are reading, whether they're using a
  • 01:56:49
    piece of equipment like a monocular, whatever the process is for those
  • 01:56:53
    clouded sight glasses. Some of the best
  • 01:56:56
    practices we've seen are trending of the bushing oil health
  • 01:57:00
    to determine if there are any anomalies in thermal oil system.
  • 01:57:05
    We've seen online IR scans that show temperature gradient differences
  • 01:57:09
    that may indicate a problem with the UP terminal or the lower flange,
  • 01:57:12
    possible cracks or leaks. We've seen offline power
  • 01:57:15
    factor and capacitance testing to show if there is a possibility of
  • 01:57:19
    contamination due to water. We've seen during emergencies,
  • 01:57:23
    weather emergencies. We've seen hourly trending of
  • 01:57:27
    the system health to indicate that something may be going wrong.
  • 01:57:31
    And that's very important if we can understand the behavior during
  • 01:57:34
    a winter emergency.
  • 01:57:37
    And one last best practice, we've seen painted
  • 01:57:41
    markings on the hardware on the upper flange or upper terminal
  • 01:57:46
    or the lower flange to tell if there's been any
  • 01:57:49
    movement. That movement could lead to hotspots and leaks.
  • 01:57:53
    Also the next topic will
  • 01:57:56
    be F1A4 nitrogen pressure.
  • 01:58:00
    So what we will be looking for there are our.
  • 01:58:03
    You saw Mike's checklist as a part
  • 01:58:06
    of transformer inspection. We want that nitrogen check and all the component checks.
  • 01:58:10
    We want them to be individual and separate. We don't want to see check transformer.
  • 01:58:14
    We want to see it look Like I think you had eight or ten different
  • 01:58:16
    points on yours. That's what we're looking for, some real granularity in those inspection
  • 01:58:20
    checklists. We'll look for vendor
  • 01:58:24
    contracts for the nitrogen. Is there an automatic,
  • 01:58:28
    automatic reorder system or is there a bulk delivery system?
  • 01:58:31
    We'll be looking for those kinds of things. We'll visual inspect the bottle,
  • 01:58:35
    the pressure gauges, the test ports, and if the bottle is in
  • 01:58:38
    the cabinet, we'll inspect the weatherproofing, the gaskets, and does the door close
  • 01:58:42
    properly for that cabinet for
  • 01:58:46
    telemetry, we'll need to see where it's telemetered to, whether it's
  • 01:58:49
    a cell phone, laptop or back at the SCADA office. If the SCADA office
  • 01:58:53
    is pretty far away, a photo can be sent to us during the inspection
  • 01:58:57
    that the SCADA operator is looking at the telemetry for the nitrogen
  • 01:59:01
    and that'll suffice. So a couple best practices are technicians
  • 01:59:06
    and, sorry, technicians with nitrogen bottles on the trucks,
  • 01:59:10
    spare nitrogen stored inside the station, nitrogen pressure
  • 01:59:13
    reads that are monitored 24 hours like by SCADA or by a technician on their
  • 01:59:17
    phones. We've seen multiple test ports
  • 01:59:21
    for nitrogen, we've seen heaters inside the nitrogen cabinets
  • 01:59:26
    and then long term trending. And it's one of the
  • 01:59:29
    benefits of having a tsp like pec.
  • 01:59:32
    They've shown us 10 years of data on a component
  • 01:59:36
    at an inspection and They've showed us 30 month speed testing on breakers.
  • 01:59:39
    They bring a lot of extra documentation. So trending of
  • 01:59:43
    nitrogen or any other components that we're going to go over is a really good
  • 01:59:47
    best practice. And so that's all I have.
  • Item 7.5 - Neil Quast - Weatherization Inspector, Sr
    01:59:50
    And Next up is Mr. Neil Quast.
  • 01:59:57
    All right, thank you, Jake. Welcome everybody.
  • 02:00:01
    Thank you for showing up today. I'm Neil Quast. I'm the Eastern region
  • 02:00:05
    Weatherization inspector for ERCOT. I will be doing other
  • 02:00:09
    regions, mainly a coastal and a south central region as
  • 02:00:13
    we kind of share regional areas.
  • 02:00:16
    Next slide, please. So Jake and
  • 02:00:20
    Darryl went into a lot of details about the individual aspects of
  • 02:00:23
    the transformer and how to maintain the health and all that for
  • 02:00:27
    the transformer. So one of the things and what this is specifically talking
  • 02:00:30
    about is doing your oil quality. One of the things
  • 02:00:33
    specifically it talks about is verification of proper oil quality, such that
  • 02:00:37
    moisture and dissolved gases are within acceptable ranges.
  • 02:00:41
    So to do that you have to do an actual draw sample
  • 02:00:45
    and send it off to a lab. We've seen a lot of places that have
  • 02:00:48
    the inline monitors or the,
  • 02:00:51
    you know, the continuous monitoring implements.
  • 02:00:55
    Those are great For a kind of a no go or a go,
  • 02:00:58
    no go check to verify everything's running. But it doesn't give
  • 02:01:01
    you all of the indications, it doesn't test all of the different attributes
  • 02:01:06
    of the oil transformer, doesn't give you all the information you need. So although those
  • 02:01:10
    are a best practice to have those in place, they're not good
  • 02:01:13
    enough to meet this part of the rule. You actually have to draw a sample,
  • 02:01:16
    have it analyzed in a lab and then review it.
  • 02:01:20
    So things we'll be looking for, that is the sample is drawn per
  • 02:01:24
    the rule prior to December 1st each year. It is a yearly requirement.
  • 02:01:29
    But also best practice with that is if you draw
  • 02:01:32
    it, we would prefer that it's drawn later in the year,
  • 02:01:36
    closer to the actual periodicity of the winter season.
  • 02:01:40
    Not, you know, hey, we're going to sample it in February and that should be
  • 02:01:43
    good for the next year. It does meet the rule, but the best practice is
  • 02:01:46
    to have it closer to the yearly inspection itself.
  • 02:01:50
    Also for verification that the parameters
  • 02:01:55
    are in the acceptable range, actually getting it reviewed by your engineering
  • 02:01:59
    staff and heeding the warnings of the engineering staff at
  • 02:02:03
    the sample lab to do whatever recommendations that they have.
  • 02:02:07
    Next slide, please,
  • 02:02:10
    for F1 Alpha talks about the implementation
  • 02:02:14
    of preparedness measures.
  • 02:02:18
    Things that we're looking at for that is one of the best practices I've seen
  • 02:02:21
    is a individual checklist that goes section by section
  • 02:02:25
    on all of these areas of the rule. And it has an individual
  • 02:02:29
    sign off sheet of, all right, we've done the training, training is
  • 02:02:32
    done, completed for everybody on this date. Sign, print date.
  • 02:02:37
    You know, the DGA has been sampled on this date for all of our transformers,
  • 02:02:41
    sign it off. And so it's an accountability checklist for y'all as well as
  • 02:02:45
    an easy way to send to your highest ranking official,
  • 02:02:49
    whoever signs the Declaration of Weather Preparedness, that they can actually sign
  • 02:02:53
    off for that and say, yes, we verified everything and we have the signatures and
  • Item 7.6 - Audie Proctor - Weatherization Inspector Lead
    02:02:56
    dates for everything corresponding with that. I will turn the
  • 02:03:00
    podium over to Audie Proctor. Thank you.
  • 02:03:08
    Good afternoon. I'm responsible for the North Weather Zone
  • 02:03:11
    inspections. Next slide, please.
  • 02:03:16
    So the first topic here is your windshield factor.
  • 02:03:20
    A lot of the larger companies do a great job. When you submit
  • 02:03:24
    your Declaration of Weather Preparedness, your Appendix A will have all
  • 02:03:27
    your substations listed. We as weather inspectors will
  • 02:03:31
    go through, we'll find our applicable substation,
  • 02:03:34
    we'll get the applicable windshield number,
  • 02:03:38
    we'll put it into our report. Great. We love it.
  • 02:03:42
    You get your data together before we even see
  • 02:03:45
    the report. So when we show up, that data is already there.
  • 02:03:49
    Very seldom on the TSP side do we run into a situation
  • 02:03:53
    where that windshield does not meet the applicable zone.
  • 02:03:56
    If your windshield does not meet your applicable zone, the next
  • 02:04:00
    part of this question comes into play. What additional measure
  • 02:04:03
    are you putting into place to meet your gap measure between
  • 02:04:07
    your windshield for your zone and your windshield that you declare?
  • 02:04:11
    So that's the windshield part of it here.
  • 02:04:16
    David touched on the windshield earlier. So with
  • 02:04:20
    no questions, we'll go on to the next slide. The next slide
  • 02:04:24
    covers your staffing plan.
  • 02:04:27
    TSP do a really good job with their staffing plan. The EOP is
  • 02:04:30
    a really good place to put your staffing plan.
  • 02:04:33
    And we understand with TSP, the staffing plan
  • 02:04:37
    encompasses a very mobile staffing plan. If one area
  • 02:04:41
    has problems, you move your staff over to that area into those substations.
  • 02:04:45
    And we understand that you don't station people at
  • 02:04:49
    substations and wait for the weather. You move them to where the problems
  • 02:04:52
    are. So just have a very clear staffing plan
  • 02:04:56
    available. Be sure that you put the annual review in there and
  • 02:05:00
    the revise is necessary. A lot of the time, the TSPs do a
  • 02:05:04
    really good job of that. Just be sure that in the documentation and
  • 02:05:07
    your weatherization plan that you submit with your declaration of weatherization,
  • 02:05:11
    that is clearly labeled in there and very clear.
  • 02:05:14
    And when we fill out our report before,
  • 02:05:19
    a lot of times, before we even get to the inspection,
  • 02:05:22
    it's already there. Any questions over weatherization or stat
  • 02:05:26
    or the windchill or staffing plan? All right,
  • Item 7.7 - Greg Schwierking - Weatherization Inspector Lead
    02:05:30
    well, welcome Greg Schwerke to the stage.
  • 02:05:36
    Thanks, Audie. Greg's working spec for the Southern region of Texas.
  • 02:05:40
    Talk over training irrelevant personnel
  • 02:05:43
    and also about compliance deficiencies.
  • 02:05:48
    So Michael pointed
  • 02:05:51
    it out earlier. Prior to December 1st, have your
  • 02:05:54
    relevant personnel trained on winter weather preparations and operations.
  • 02:06:00
    Provide the training roster completed prior to December 1st
  • 02:06:04
    to your inspector, provide the training content,
  • 02:06:08
    and then include the trainer. Sometimes we'll see
  • 02:06:11
    the trainer was like an area supervisor or a foreman
  • 02:06:15
    or something like that. He conducted the training. He didn't sign the training
  • 02:06:19
    roster himself. So very important that he gets that included.
  • 02:06:23
    You can have exceptions on your training. Have people out
  • 02:06:27
    on FMLA as soon as they come back to work,
  • 02:06:30
    get them trained up. You can have them sign us or sign
  • 02:06:34
    a separate document or even sign onto the completed roster
  • 02:06:38
    that you did prior to December 1st with the note of FMLA
  • 02:06:42
    when they completed it, and notify your inspector. Hey, look,
  • 02:06:46
    we've got an exception here at the bottom of the slide.
  • 02:06:50
    You have a definition of who relevant personnel
  • 02:06:54
    are, so you can review that and it might be some people that
  • 02:06:57
    you've overlooked. Just update as necessary.
  • 02:07:00
    Some of the best practices that we see is that entities
  • 02:07:04
    are assigning relevant roles
  • 02:07:08
    or relevant personnel based on a role. So all the site
  • 02:07:12
    technicians are relevant personnel. So as people come in
  • 02:07:15
    and out of that job, they'll fall into the role and then they get
  • 02:07:18
    their training or the foreman or the area managers,
  • 02:07:22
    things like that. You can go on to the next slide, please.
  • 02:07:29
    So there's several types of compliance deficiencies.
  • 02:07:32
    One of the first ones that may run into
  • 02:07:36
    is going to be a compliance deficiency was cured prior to inspection.
  • 02:07:39
    So you're prior to inspector even getting on site, you're going
  • 02:07:42
    through your records, you find that you've got a gap and you guys
  • 02:07:46
    correct that prior to the inspector even being on
  • 02:07:49
    site, then just that type of deficiency,
  • 02:07:52
    just notify your inspector, hey look, we found a gap and we corrected it.
  • 02:07:56
    So the other type of deficiency
  • 02:08:00
    we're gonna find is one that's compliance deficiency
  • 02:08:03
    identified upon inspection. Inspector gets on site,
  • 02:08:07
    reviews your records and identifies there's a gap
  • 02:08:10
    and then he's gonna give you 72 hours to
  • 02:08:14
    get that corrected. Other type of compliance deficiency
  • 02:08:18
    is going to be more of a longer term. That would require a cure period.
  • 02:08:22
    ERCOT will gather the facts from the market participant,
  • 02:08:25
    formulate a reasonable cure period for the identified deficiency,
  • 02:08:29
    formally notify the market participant documenting
  • 02:08:33
    deficiency in the proposed corrective action, and then
  • 02:08:37
    after the completion, deliver the completed report to the market participant.
  • 02:08:42
    On inspections,
  • 02:08:45
    a lot of times we don't have fully qualified people on
  • 02:08:49
    site. If you can always have fully qualified people
  • 02:08:53
    on site and also your regulatory or corporate compliance folks
  • 02:08:57
    on there on that meeting or in that inspection,
  • 02:09:01
    it's we like that, we like to meet the
  • 02:09:05
    compliance folks with that.
  • 02:09:09
    I'll hand it back to Will.
  • 02:09:34
    Oh, there you go. Okay. To add
  • 02:09:38
    on to more of what I would say is best practices and to
  • 02:09:41
    what the inspectors have already gone over. Communication is
  • 02:09:45
    very essential to us as
  • 02:09:48
    it's probably the most important thing to get
  • 02:09:51
    straight when it comes to the inspection season.
  • 02:09:55
    All inspection related communication will
  • 02:09:59
    be carried out through the WNI market participant portal.
  • 02:10:04
    The link is provided. So whenever this PDF
  • 02:10:07
    is or PowerPoint is ready, you can click directly on that and it will take
  • 02:10:10
    you to that. It will also help in creating and maintaining
  • 02:10:14
    records of relevant items
  • 02:10:18
    that are relevant to the Commission and
  • 02:10:22
    the preparedness regulation that will facilitate the inspection
  • 02:10:25
    process. Within this portal you
  • 02:10:29
    will be able to accept, reject or request
  • 02:10:32
    new inspection date and
  • 02:10:36
    once you've received and accepted the nois,
  • 02:10:40
    you can proceed to uploading any other information that would
  • 02:10:44
    be needed that can help make the inspection
  • 02:10:48
    process a lot smoother. Effective Communication again
  • 02:10:52
    is very important between us, ERCOT and the market
  • 02:10:56
    participants as it will be essential
  • 02:11:00
    for our success in this upcoming winter inspection season.
  • 02:11:05
    For any inspection related questions, you can use the
  • 02:11:08
    portal again to create a support case in
  • 02:11:12
    which I will be able to help you through that.
  • 02:11:16
    Any other questions not related to the inspection, you can reach
  • 02:11:20
    out to the ERCOT management account managers or the client services
  • 02:11:24
    team with the information provided in this PowerPoint slide.
  • 02:11:27
    With all that being said, thank you very much. I'll hand it over now to
  • 02:11:30
    Rohan. Again,
  • 02:11:36
    thank you very much to the entire weatherization inspection team
  • 02:11:40
    for that great presentation. So moving on,
  • Item 8 - Questions - All
    02:11:43
    before we end today's workshop, are there any
  • 02:11:47
    questions in this room or anyone who's
  • 02:11:51
    online Virtually?
  • 02:11:58
    One of the questions that we always get asked and also got asked this
  • 02:12:01
    at today's morning session is about the presentations.
  • 02:12:05
    Yes, they will be available. We will be uploading them
  • 02:12:09
    on our Winter Ready website shortly with within
  • 02:12:13
    a few days after we make the final corrections needed to the
  • 02:12:16
    presentations. Any other questions?
  • Item 9 - Adjourn
    02:12:22
    All right, thank you very much everyone for attending today's
  • 02:12:26
    weatherization workshop. We wish you nothing but
  • 02:12:30
    the very best and looking forward to a successful winter
  • 02:12:33
    inspection season. Thank you
1230 PM - Antitrust Admonition - Kelm
Oct 28, 2024 - pptx - 94.8 KB
1231 PM - Winter 24-25 Workshop Agenda - Khondker
Oct 28, 2024 - pptx - 2.9 MB
1235 PM - Director's Corner - Kezell
Oct 28, 2024 - pptx - 446.2 KB
0100 PM - TSP Winter_preparedness_workshop_winter_weather_outlook_2024-25- Coleman
Oct 28, 2024 - pptx - 41 MB
0200 PM - PEC Winter Preparedness - Brinkman
Oct 28, 2024 - pptx - 27.2 MB
0225 PM - TSP Winter Inspection Checklist - Weatherization Team (1)
Oct 28, 2024 - pptx - 422.1 KB
1 - Antitrust Admonition - Kasey Kelm, ERCOT
Starts at 00:01:01
2 - Agenda - Raihan Khondker, ERCOT
Starts at 00:02:39
3 - Director’s Corner – Weatherization - David Kezell, ERCOT
Starts at 00:04:16
4 - ERCOT’s Winter Weather forecast - Chris Coleman, ERCOT
Starts at 00:32:42
5 - BREAK - All
Starts at 01:12:36
6 - Market Participant Spotlight – Mike Brinkman, Pedernales Electric Coop, Inc
Starts at 01:30:45
6.1 - PEC Winter Preparedness
Starts at 01:31:43
7 - TSP Winter Inspection Checklist - Inspectors, ERCOT
Starts at 01:44:07
7.1 - Pete Godswill - Program Analyst II
Starts at 01:45:25
7.2 - Kevin harris - Weatherization Inspector Lead
Starts at 01:46:59
7.3 - Darryl Nitschke - Weatherization Inspector Lead
Starts at 01:51:01
7.4 - Jake Jacobs - Weatherization Inspector, Sr
Starts at 01:53:41
7.5 - Neil Quast - Weatherization Inspector, Sr
Starts at 01:59:50
7.6 - Audie Proctor - Weatherization Inspector Lead
Starts at 02:02:56
7.7 - Greg Schwierking - Weatherization Inspector Lead
Starts at 02:05:30
8 - Questions - All
Starts at 02:11:43
9 - Adjourn
Starts at 02:12:22