Austin May 2015 Luncheon

"Think FAST: An Overview and Status Report on the Future Ancillary Services Team Initiative at ERCOT"

Ongoing changes to the resource mix in Texas are providing both benefits and challenges to the reliable and efficient operation of the ERCOT market. ERCOT has proposed a major change to the current 1990s-era ancillary services framework to meet evolving system needs and facilitate the use of new types of resources to meet those needs efficiently using market-based tools. Our speaker Dan Woodfin, Director of System Operations for ERCOT, will discuss the proposed Future Ancillary Services framework, the driving factors for the change, the current state of the proposal, and the recently initiated effort to add a new type of ancillary service related to system inertia.

Dan Woodfin has been with ERCOT for twelve years, during which he has led efforts to improve the transmission planning process by incorporating enhanced stakeholder input and economic considerations, to develop and implement the CREZ Transmission Plan, to reliably integrate wind generation into the system, to improve the transparency of the use of operational constraint management plans and to develop the future ancillary services framework, having been both Director of System Operations and Director of System Planning for ERCOT. Before joining ERCOT, Dan was Manager of Transmission Policy for the merchant generation development group at Reliant Energy and Manager of Resource Planning for the CSW utilities. Dan has a BSEE and MBA from Texas A&M University.