On March 25, 2022, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) issued a notice regarding a new interim heavy load interconnect process that will be effective soon. The interim process accelerates the timeline for load interconnect requests (usually crypto miners, etc.) that have not been modeled and investigated in the completed ERCOT plan evaluation (eg regional transmission plans, full interconnect surveys, or regional plans). Applies to large and flexible loads). Group review). The new provisional heavy load interconnect process applies to:
- New loads that are not co-located with resources with aggregate demand of 75 MW or more within the next two years.
- Total demand will increase by more than 75 MW within the next two years because the existing load is not co-located with the resources.
- A new load co-located with resources with a total demand of 20 MW or more within the next two years.Also
- The existing load will be co-located with the resources and the total demand will increase by more than 20 MW within the next two years.
In addition, new heavy loads may limit the amount of load that can be interconnected to the ERCOT until further investigation is done.
ERCOT has established this tentative heavy load interconnection process, and the heavy load that accelerated the interconnection timeline has increased in recent years, perhaps at least in part due to the advent of cryptocurrency mining operations in the state. I confirmed that. Complies with the reliability standards of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC).
As explained by ERCOT, the interim process requires the transmission service provider (TSP) to first submit an interconnect survey for each applicable heavy load that proposes an interconnect to the grid. This study must meet NERC’s FAC-002-2 reliability criteria. ERCOT staff will review the survey with the goal of completing each review within 10 business days, but this is not a guaranteed deadline.
If the TSP investigation is unconcerned and there are no comments that need to be addressed, ERCOT staff will conduct operational reviews to determine if the interconnection of large users poses stability constraints on the transmission system, and for transmission. Expansion is needed to ensure improvement or reliability. If long-term transmission improvements are needed for reliable interconnection of heavy loads, ERCOT is provisional to allow customers to interconnect at least part of the requested load in a short amount of time. Evaluate whether the usage restrictions are appropriate. In the meantime, ERCOT continues to evaluate and implement the actions required to ensure that the full requested load is interconnected.
ERCOT establishes the Large Flexible Load Task Force (LFLTF) to work with stakeholders to develop long-term heavy load interconnect processes and will hold its first meeting on April 14, 2022. bottom. 14 A meeting where ERCOT and TSP are the quickest to discuss outside the LFLTF meeting to establish a permanent interconnection process. The people involved in these discussions bring recommendations to LFLTF for approval.
On April 26, the LFLTF Task Force will hold another meeting, during which it will prioritize the list of issues related to the interim process, hear from stakeholders, integrate models and interconnect heavy loads. Discuss the plan.
