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Vistra to Install New Gas-Fired Units at Permian Basin Power Plant

LCG, September 30, 2025--Vistra Corp. announced yesterday that it will proceed with the next phase of its capital plan to support grid reliability in Texas. In 2024, Vistra identified over $1 billion worth of potential capital additions in generation capacity within the Texas ERCOT market by 2028 if market conditions were supportive. Now, with West Texas' growing power requirements, particularly the state's expanding oil and natural gas industries, Vistra reached a final investment decision and confirms it will build two new advanced natural gas-fired power units on-site at its Permian Basin Power Plant.

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ERCOT Announces New Grid Research, Innovation and Transformation (GRIT) Initiative

LCG, September 24, 2025--Electric Reliability Council of Texas Inc. (ERCOT) yesterday announced its new initiative to increase its efforts to fully use and apply innovation and transformation through industry collaboration to best overcome the challenges and opportunities facing future grid operations. The new Grid Research, Innovation, and Transformation (GRIT) initiative will advance research and prototyping of emerging concepts and solutions to better understand the implications of rapid grid and technology evolution and position ERCOT to lead in the future energy landscape.

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Industry News

California, Federal, Industry Officials in Power 'Summit'

LCG, Dec. 19, 2000--Officials from regulatory agencies met today with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and representatives of power companies, marketers and utilities in an effort to relieve the upward pressure on electricity prices in California.

No matter what they do, they won't be able to accomplish the one thing that would alleviate the state's power crisis: Create an abundance of generation that would put the supply of electricity in balance with rapidly growing demand in California.

The high-level, closed-door meeting, moderated by FERC's Chief Administrative Law Judge Curtis Wagner, was to seek a long-term solution to the power squeeze that has seen electric bills triple in the San Diego area where consumers are no longer protected by a price freeze mandated by the 1996 legislation that restructured California's electric industry.

Elsewhere in the state, residential and small commercial electric customers are paying 10 percent less for power than they were when the deregulation law was passed, but the two investor-owned utilities that deliver that electricity have been making up the difference, to the tune of about $8 billion.

U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson told ABC's Good Morning America that the goal of the state power summit is to "come up with a broad set of principles to deal with the short-term and long-termproblem.

"What we need to do is find ways that power can come into the West. There can be moreelectricity competition," Richardson said.

Richardson and California Gov. Gray Davis were expected to participate in today's meeting, possibly by telephone, where an attempt will be made to change the way utilities purchase wholesale power.

Under the state deregulation law, utilities are required to purchase all the power they resell to retail customers through the California Power Exchange. This arrangement quickly degenerated into competitive bidding for power on what is called the "spot market" -- a segment of the power market that would ordinarily be used for last-minute transactions to fill in the gaps, and amount to a tiny fraction of the overall market.

FERC has recommended that utilities be allowed to arrange for power well in advance, perhaps up to 30 years. Both utilities and power producers seem in favor of the idea.

Southern California Edison Co. spokeswoman Gloria Quinn said "I think everyone has reached the conclusion that reliance on the spot market, with all of its problems right now, is something to be minimized."

Power producers like the idea because it would stabilize future power sales and justify development of new power plants. Lynn Lednicky, a senior vice president of Houston-based Dynegy Inc. which owns 2,700 megawatts of California generation, said that with most trading taking place on the spot market "we're at the mercy of weather, demand, a number of different factors out there."

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