Texas Grid Operator Establishes Voluntary Curtailment Program to Manage Peak Demand

The Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) on Dec. 6 announced a voluntary curtailment program, which permits large flexible consumers to reduce their electricity usage during periods of elevated demand.

The large curtailment program for Large Flexible Loads, or LFL, aims to give bitcoin miners and data centers incentives to reduce usage, since they have the capability to turn on and off power usage at short notice, in order to divert energy. Bitcoin miners and data centers are the primary type of LFLs that operate in Texas, who require significant amounts of energy to operate.

The voluntary curtailment program is part of a larger effort to support the reliability of the Texas electricity grid. The program allows large consumers to be flexible with their usage and provides them with the ability to reduce their energy usage efficiently, if required. By reducing usage during high demand periods, the Texan electricity grid becomes more resilient, and this reduces the likelihood of potential blackouts, during extreme weather events. The program is mainly aimed for large flexible consumers, however any consumer directly connected to the Transmission Service Providers facility can take part, as long as it has been approved by ERCOT.

As part of the program, ERCOT will give participating consumers with an automated notification demanding curtailment of usage, during periods of low or falling Physical Responsive Capability after Non-Spinning Reserve Service has been implemented, but prior to the deployment of the Emergency Response Service, or ERS. As a prerequisite for participating, the consumer must make certain that ERCOT has telemetry of the consumer’s total premise level load. Moreover, the amount of load may be required to be registered at the time of entry and should not include any volume of load, that is offered or used to provide any Ancillary Service or ERS.

The grid operator projects the program to become operational in January 2023. Moreover, the program is temporary and voluntary, until ERCOT creates a long term set of rules. Under this program the grid operator will not refer any customer to the Public Utility Commission of Texas for failure to abide by any ERCOT curtailment call.