News
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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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
Court of Appeals Vacates EPA's CSAPR
LCG, August 23, 2012--The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, overturned on Tuesday the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), which targets emission reductions. The court's action provides some level of regulatory relief with respect to sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions for owners of coal-fired power plants located in 28 states.
CSAPR would have replaced a rule promulgated by the EPA in 2005, the Clean Air Interstate Rule ("CAIR"). The court opinion stated that the CSAPR exceeded the EPA's statutory authority which only requires upwind states to reduce "significant contributions" to a downwind state's pollution levels. In addition, the court found that the rule did not allow the states an opportunity to establish their own State Implementation Plans (SIPs) to reduce emissions, as provided for in the Clean Air Act (CAA).
Attorneys general from mostly Southern and Midwestern states brought the legal action against CSAPR, and interveners include a number of utilities that own coal-fired power plants.
CSAPR "had potentially far-reaching reliability impacts for a grid in which electric use is growing far more rapidly than new generation resources are being built to serve that need," said the chief executive of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which oversees power delivery for most of Texas.
The EPA is reviewing the decision to determine whether or not it will appeal the ruling. CAIR will remain in place while the EPA is directed to promulgate a new rule complying with the Court's decision and the Clean Air Act.
Owners of coal-fired plants will need to continue to address regulatory pressures from the EPA's Mercury Air Toxics Standard (MATS), together with evolving water and coal combustion residue (CCR) regulations. Setting aside regulatory challenges, low natural gas prices provide a competitive challenge for coal plants as well.
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UPLAN-NPM
The Locational Marginal Price Model (LMP) Network Power Model
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UPLAN-ACE
Day Ahead and Real Time Market Simulation
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UPLAN-G
The Gas Procurement and Competitive Analysis System
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PLATO
Database of Plants, Loads, Assets, Transmission...
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