Texas authorizes 12 GW of solar projects in seven months, yet 9 GW of battery projects suffer

• The Texas grid driver has greater than tripled its pace of completing utility-scale solar interconnection studies because 2019. Yet the battery stockpile remains to expand.

The ERCOT grid operator that serves a lot of Texas has actually finished complete affiliation researches for 58 solar projects totaling 11.9 GW of capacity so far this year. The finished research studies will permit project programmers to continue towards commercial operation.

In the very first seven months of this year, ERCOT has currently finished almost twice as lots of solar interconnection researches, for almost two times as much solar ability, as it performed in every one of 2019.

These information reflect an evaluation of ERCOT's Generator Interconnection Status reports for December 2019 and also July 2020.

Contributing to this remarkable increase in efficiency, claimed an ERCOT speaker, is a resource integration group that ERCOT created, with team from the procedures, planning as well as grid sychronisation features, to aid improve the affiliation process. ERCOT additionally developed brand-new devices to assist its team and also market participants in processing affiliation demands, she stated.

The spokesperson attributed transmission company for doing "the majority of the work" on complete integration researches, while ERCOT team "is accountable for assessing and authorizing FIS studies."

ERCOT has actually been lowering its matter of full interconnection research studies underway given that about February, as revealed by the diminishing light blue bars in this ERCOT graph:

ERCOT's solar workload continues to be high, since so far this year solar designers have requested complete studies for 49 projects amounting to 13.3 GW. At last count, ERCOT had concerning 2.7 GW of utility-scale solar ability.

Battery projects languish

ERCOT's battery queue has actually grown to regarding 9 GW. Developers of 32 battery projects amounting to 4.9 GW have asked for full researches this year, while ERCOT has actually finished just 9 such studies this year, for projects completing 0.7 GW. In 2019 ERCOT authorized only 2 battery projects for 0.25 GW, while it obtained 43 requests for complete researches, standing for 4.1 GW.

ERCOT's 2019 "State of the Grid" report claims that the grid driver has actually developed a battery energy storage task force, as well as team have started checking out technological demands, modeling demands and market guidelines for battery storage space.

ERCOT's wind line is stable, with 15 wind projects completing 2.5 GW authorized given that January, and also designers of 10 wind projects amounting to 2.4 GW asking for complete research studies since then.

For a solar project programmer, ERCOT's full interconnection research is a significant difficulty, and also needs settlement of the second and larger of two affiliation fees to ERCOT. A developer needs to complete numerous other steps after ERCOT completes a full research, including deal with the transmission company to connect the project to the grid.

Landmarks in ERCOT's affiliation process are shown listed below, with the full interconnection research study shown in the middle of the top row:

ERCOT affiliation information were assessed for this tale by Driscoll Consulting LLC, a firm possessed by the author. An ERCOT spokesperson said that team examined the solar as well as battery information, which were offered in a press query, as well as discovered the data to be "near what we're showing in our system." The agent stated that ERCOT staff can make changes to FIS authorization dates gradually, "and therefore, contrasting an older GIS report with a brand-new one may result in some distinctions. As an instance, modern technology adjustments can need extra studies which would consequently influence the FIS approval day."