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
BrightSource Suspends Application for the 500-MW Hidden Hills Solar Project
LCG, April 8, 2013--BrightSource Energy Inc. notified the California Energy Commission (CEC) on April 3 that it will suspend the permit application for the Hidden Hills Solar Energy Generating System project.
The power purchase agreement (PPA) between BrightSource and Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) will also be terminated. BrightSource stated that the termination is due to challenges associated with the project schedule and uncertainty around the timing of transmission upgrades. The Hidden Hills Solar Energy Generating System project site is located on 3,280 acres of private land in Inyo County, California and is approximately 45 miles west of Las Vegas, Nevada. The project was to be a 500-MW solar thermal complex using over 340,000 software-controlled mirrors to focus the sunlight on boilers that sit atop two 750 foot tall towers. The concentrated solar energy heats the water to create superheated steam that drives a standard turbine where electricity is generated.
The project was to include two solar fields and associated facilities: the northern solar plant (Solar Plant 1) and the southern solar plant (Solar Plant 2). Each solar plant would generate 270 MW gross (250 MW net), for a total net output of 500 MW. Construction was to have started in 2013, with power produced in 2015.
BrightSource stated that the contracts with PG&E did not originally include storage, and such a change would require an amendment to the permit application and reopening of the evidentiary record to account for impacts associated with a new project footprint, including a layout of the solar field, storage equipment and reconfiguration of the power blocks.
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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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