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LCG Publishes 2024 Annual Outlook for Texas Electricity Market (ERCOT)

LCG, October 10, 2023 – LCG Consulting (LCG) has released its annual outlook of the ERCOT wholesale electricity market for 2024, based on the most likely weather, market, transmission, and generator conditions.

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LCG Publishes 2024 Annual Outlook for Texas Electricity Market (ERCOT)

LCG, October 10, 2023 – LCG Consulting (LCG) has released its annual outlook of the ERCOT wholesale electricity market for 2024, based on the most likely weather, market, transmission, and generator conditions.

Read more

Industry News

Arizona Needs Transmission Upgrades, State Says

LCG, Aug. 9, 2001--In its Biennial Transmission Assessment, the Arizona Corporation Commission says that the state may have plenty of electric power generation but getting the power to where it's needed could be something else.

High-growth areas like Phoenix could face "California-style rolling blackouts" unless new transmission lines are added, the report concludes. But the utilities who own the transmission grid say the existing wires have served well in the past and will continue to do so.

"We believe the transmission system is adequate and reliable, and it's proven so in recent memory," said Steve Glaser, chief operating officer of Tucson Electric Power Co.

Not so, said the commission staff, pointing to an outage that occurred in July of last year when a New Mexico forest fire shut down two 138 kilovolt lines that carry power from TEP's Springerville power plant. While some customers' power was restored almost immediately, others were without electricity for more that a full day.

Glaser said his utility was not complacent and, despite its contention that the existing system is adequate, the company is building several new lines to meet demand and improve reliability,including a line from Springerville to a major substation, a new line to Tucson from a major transmission hub near Phoenix to Tucson, and a proposed line to Nogales, Ariz., and Mexico.

Arizona Public Service Co., the federal Salt River Project and a host of municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives all say that the state's transmission system meets standards set by the North American Electric Reliability Council and argue that the commission report ignores new power plants being built near parts of the state where additional power will be needed.

Rob Kondziolka, manager of transmission planning for Salt River, noted that APS and his organization are upgrading local power plants and are jointly constructing a new, 500-kilovolt line from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix to the Phoenix area that is expected to be online by summer 2003.

Arizona regulators opened the state's electric market to competition in January, but so far it has been limited to just a few large business customers. The commission is worried about when competition becomes more general, and competitive suppliers have difficulty gaining access to transmission services.

The report notes that the state's utilities can effectively use "transmission congestion" to restrict access to their lines.

"Right now, the capacity on a lot of these lines is really captive, and there's no way to get more power through," said Dennis Tyrrell, president of New Millennium Energy Corp., a Tucson-based company that was recently licensed as a competitive electric service provider.

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