Houston August 2017 Luncheon

“Priorities for the Evolution of an ERCOT Energy-Only Market Design”

The ERCOT market faces challenges that increasingly inhibit the competitive performance needed to sustain the “energy only” design. In particular, addressing large influx of renewable energy with artificially low pricing combined with an aging fleet of thermal generation will require market adjustments to ensure a stable market. Reforms are needed to (1) ensure accuracy of scarcity pricing mechanisms; (2) incorporate marginal transmission losses in the real time cost of serving customers across long distances; (3) reduce impact of “out of market” ISO actions and market rules; and (4) mitigate the impact of traditional transmission planning and cost allocation that inhibit competitive solution alternatives.

Bill Barnes is Director of Regulatory Affairs for NRG located in Austin.  He is responsible for covering ERCOT market design issues for both the retail and wholesale markets, providing market analysis, and advocacy.  Bill is an elected member of the Wholesale Market Subcommittee and Protocol Revision Subcommittee in the ERCOT stakeholder process.  Bill has over 15 years of experience in the power industry.

Prior to joining NRG, Bill was a Vice President in US Power Trading at J Aron & Company, the commodities trading subsidiary of Goldman Sachs. During his 5 years at Goldman, he was responsible for executing commodity trading strategies, managing various power generation assets, conducting power market design and policy research, and providing strategic commercial advice. Before joining Goldman Sachs in 2008, Bill was the Manager of Settlements and Billing at ERCOT. While at ERCOT, he spent over 7 years managing, designing, and maintaining the commercial aspects of the ERCOT power market. In addition, he has testified numerous times before the Public Utility Commission of Texas to articulate market design aspects of the competitive power market. Bill began his career at Accenture working on competitive retail markets and ISO market development. Bill earned a Masters of Electrical Engineering with a concentration in Software Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelors of Chemical Engineering from the University of Dayton.