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Texas Demand Response
Reduce energy spend and earn money in ERCOT’s demand response programs with Enel North America
ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, is responsible for ensuring a stable electric grid in Texas. Demand response programs support ERCOT in various ways to ensure grid stability, with high value placed on ancillary support. ERCOT leverages demand response programs to mitigate rolling blackouts from occurring and in response to sudden, short-term supply/demand imbalances on the grid.
Enel has a proven track record of helping hundreds of organizations throughout Texas earn money, save on energy costs, and mitigate carbon emissions with demand response. How does it work? When ERCOT determines there is a reliability risk to the grid, they dispatch Enel’s demand response network, which is made up of local organizations that have agreed to reduce energy when called upon to help ERCOT remain in balance. As part of Enel, the global leader in demand response, Enel North America has the experience, market expertise, technology, and solutions that set organizations up for success and maximize their demand response earning potential in ERCOT. With Enel, participating in demand response in ERCOT has never been easier.
Texas demand response program options
Emergency Response Service (ERS)
ERS is a demand response program designed to help ERCOT mitigate rolling blackouts from occurring. ERS program participants curtail their load when notified of an impending grid emergency (typically due to high demand, extreme weather, or transmission issues).
| Program period |
|
|
Program hours |
24x7x365, split into eight time periods |
|
Advanced notification |
|
|
Maximum dispatches |
|
|
Testing requirement |
Must pass 1 test per year lasting 30 minutes (if no dispatch) |
Responsive Reserve Service (RRS)
ERCOT introduced the RRS ancillary program to help maintain grid security and reliability. RRS alleviates the potential for blackouts by delivering the real-time capacity resources ERCOT needs when there are unexpected disruptions that last for short periods of time, like unplanned outages or demand spikes.
| Program period |
Year-round |
|
Program hours |
24x7; commitments are made day-ahead |
|
Advanced notification |
Frequency response (instantaneous, automatic) and ERCOT-issued curtailment |
|
Response duration |
No maximum, typically <30 min events |
ERCOT Contingency Reserve Service (ECRS)
ERCOT introduced ECRS in June 2023 as an additional ancillary offering to help maintain grid security and reliability. Similar to RRS, ECRS alleviates the potential for blackouts by delivering real-time capacity resources to balance the grid. However, ECRS has more frequent and longer duration dispatches to handle the ramping periods of intermittent generation resources and any other shortages in grid capacity due to forecast errors.
| Program period |
Year-round |
|
Program hours |
24x7; commitments are made day-ahead |
|
Advanced notification |
ERCOT-issued curtailment and frequency response if using UFR (instantaneous, automatic) |
|
Response duration |
No maximum, typically 2-hour events |
Comparing Texas demand response programs
|
Emergency Response Service (ERS) |
Responsive Reserve Service (RRS) |
ERCOT Contingency Reserve Service (ECRS) |
|
|
Program period and hours |
Organized into 4 seasons and 8 time periods – participants choose which season(s) and time period(s) to participate |
24x7x365 Hourly offers set day-ahead |
24x7x365 Hourly offers set day-ahead |
|
Advanced notification |
10 minutes or 30 minutes (based on program allocation) |
Instantaneous |
Instantaneous, must curtail within 10 minutes |
|
Payments |
Capacity payments (for being on stand-by) |
Capacity payments (for availability) |
Capacity payments (for availability) |
|
Technology requirement |
N/A |
|
|
|
How much can you earn? |
Earn $60K – $70K per year for agreeing to reduce 1 MW. Earn even if no emergency dispatches are called. |
Earn $85K – $185K+ per year for agreeing to reduce 1 MW, 24x7. Earn even if no emergency dispatches are called; however, there is typically a daily reduction in MW cleared (proration) |
Earn $100K – $185K+ per year for agreeing to reduce 1 MW, 24x7. Earn even if no emergency dispatches are called. Limited, to no, daily reduction in MW cleared (proration) |
Texas demand response program FAQs
Emergency Response Service (ERS)
Demand response programs provide a no-risk, no-cost opportunity for commercial, institutional, and industrial organizations to earn money while helping maintain reliable electricity throughout Texas. Program participants receive recurring capacity payments for agreeing to curtail electricity consumption in response to abnormally high electricity demand or electricity price spikes.
- Maximize payments to your bottom line: Enel manages your participation from start to finish, ensuring you earn the highest possible financial reward. Since 2015, our customers have earned more than $1.325 billion in payments.
- Support your community: Your participation helps maintain reliable electricity throughout Texas and provides a clean, cost-effective alternative to building new power plants in the community.
Enel makes participation easy. We take care of the complex details so you can stay focused on running your business.
- Our local experts work with you to identify your energy reduction potential and create a strategy that delivers maximum value with minimum impact on your operations. We outline these measures in a detailed energy reduction plan.
- We install necessary metering devices at your facility to establish communication with our Network Operations Center (NOC), so we can monitor your energy consumption levels in real-time.
- Enel simulates a demand response dispatch to ensure that you are comfortable with your energy reduction plan. At any time during a dispatch, you can log in to the app to view your performance in real-time.
- Your site is then enrolled and ready to respond if and when a dispatch begins. Throughout the process, we fully manage enrollment, measurement, verification, and payments on your behalf.
- Notification: When ERCOT anticipates the need for support, they dispatch the Enel network into action. Enel will notify you via email, phone, or SMS informing you when the dispatch will begin.
- Response: At the start of the dispatch, your facility will reduce its electricity usage according to your pre-determined energy reduction plan – either manually, or automatically through the NOC.
- Support: Before, during, and after a dispatch, our NOC remains in communication with your facility. Our staff is available 24x7x365, supporting you to ensure that you achieve the highest possible levels of performance and payments
Enel has extensive experience creating reduction strategies that work within the operational limitations of a wide variety of facilities, including cold storage, manufacturers, food processors, universities, malls, office buildings and more.
Common reduction examples include:
- Reduce non-essential lighting
- Modify manufacturing processes
- Adjust HVAC equipment
- Dial back pumps
- Change settings in industrial freezers
Our customers find that many energy-intensive processes can simply be shifted by a few hours to facilitate dispatch participation. Ask us about our experience working with customers like you.
Our experts are standing by to speak with you about your organization’s demand response opportunity. Submit your information here to get a conversation started with our team.
Responsive Reserve Service (RRS)
Businesses with stable and predictable load profiles that can safely curtail automatically and instantaneously make great Load Resource (LR) candidates for RRS. To maximize earnings, LRs must have a predictable load pattern that Enel can reliably estimate one day in advance. Due to the short dispatch notification window, LRs must have real-time telemetry installed on site to send load data, breaker status, and under frequency relay (UFR) status to ERCOT in real-time.
- Maximize payments to your bottom line: Enel will work with you to establish your earnings potential based on your specific participation plan including the load and the total hours you commit. Prices vary by hour and month, but for each of the past five years, the hourly RRS clearing price has exceeded $85,000/MW-year for 24x7 participation.
- Get paid to protect valuable equipment: Decaying frequencies can have detrimental effects to the equipment at your site. The RRS program provides frequency protection to the ERCOT grid and will also prevent costly damage to your processes and equipment resulting from a power trip. In essence, you are paid to protect your operations.
Enel makes participation easy. We take care of the complex details so you can stay focused on running your business.
To enable your participation in the RRS program:
- We will register your facility as a Load Resource with ERCOT and install both an energy monitoring device and a UFR at your site.
- Our team of experts will work with you to identify curtailable load and build a custom bidding strategy that maximizes your earnings without jeopardizing your operations.
Your RRS bidding strategy will have two components:
- Day-ahead: Enel will develop proposed hourly offers (load and price) for your site to bid into the day-ahead market, giving you the opportunity to confirm or update before any action is taken.
- Notify Enel of any operational load changes by 9:00 AM CPT for the day-ahead schedule.
- Enel will bid your offers into the day-ahead market for RRS at 10:00 AM CPT.
- ERCOT publishes clearing results (your final commitment) by 1:30 PM CPT. Once an LR is committed to the RRS market, it cannot commit to any other demand response participation for that day.
- Day-of: Ensure the load at your facility remains within 95%–150% of your offered MW value. This is critical to remain in compliance with ERCOT. Your payments are based on your load availability, regardless of a dispatch.
There are two scenarios for LRs to be dispatched in the RRS program:
- Frequency drops below 59.7 Hz. ERCOT requires one or more UFRs to be installed at LR sites so that power can be interrupted automatically and instantaneously when this condition occurs.
- ERCOT-deployed event. Should ERCOT experience reserve shortages or another grid emergency, LRs are required to curtail grid usage within 10 minutes of the dispatch.
Customers will never pay out-of-pocket penalties for under-performance in an RRS dispatch. If you anticipate any outages in your normal schedule, notify Enel immediately at ERCOTLRSupport.EnelXus@enel.com or +1 888 363 7662 no later than 9:00 AM CPT the day prior to the outage to prevent a reduction in your RRS payment.
Enel pays upfront for all metering equipment, controls, and connectivity fees associated with enrolling your site in the RRS program that are then recouped through your future demand response earnings.
Our experts are standing by to speak with you about your organization’s demand response opportunity. Submit your information here to get a conversation started with our team.
Texas demand response resources
