Over time the energy world has become a web of intricate variables that when combined that, when combined determine the direction, predictability, stability and volatility of all energy products. We have spent years studying, tracking and understanding these variables so that we are able to best advise our clients and potential clients with the most up-to-date pertinent data.
In some cases, decisions that are delayed by days, let alone weeks or months, can make significant monetary impacts on a proposed solution.
Identifying solvable problems is an incredibly rare and valuable skill. USA Energy Partners are experts at identifying all areas of potential improvement for both operational efficiency as well as financial profitability.
While negotiating to get spectacular rates is very important, identifying factors that may be creating inefficient use which leads to excessive penalties can often save significant expenditures if addressed correctly.
Often in the energy business, understanding the marketplace and identifying potential problem areas turns out to be simpler than solving the issues themselves. Our firm takes great pride in our proven creative problem solving that is based on a long-term plan and not a now-or-never mentality.
USA Energy Partners wants to be just that with our clients... Partners! We want to understand the future that our clients envision, and propose solutions that coincide with the architecture of that future to aid in individually and collectively attaining those goals.
So many transactions in our industry are one-and-done in the eyes of the broker. Once the ink is dry, that client is the energy providers' problem. Not at USA Energy Partners! From the moment that we engage in a partnership with our client, we are now your advocate and single point of contact at any time. If there is an issue, it is our responsibility and privilege to address it and get it fixed to the best of our ability on your behalf. Service is a journey not a destination!!
At the beginning of World War II, several electric utilities in Texas banded together as the Texas Interconnected System (TIS) to support the war effort. They sent excess power supplies to industrial manufacturing companies on the Gulf Coast to provide reliable electricity supplies for energy-intensive aluminum smelting. Recognizing the reliability advantages of remaining interconnected, the TIS members continued to use and develop the interconnected grid. TIS members adopted official operating guides for their interconnected power system and established two monitoring centers within the control centers of two utilities, one in North Texas and one in South Texas.
TIS formed the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in 1970 to comply with North American Reliability (NERC) requirements. ERCOT was staffed by two retired employees from utilities.
TIS members transferred all operating functions to ERCOT, and ERCOT became the central operating coordinator for Texas.
1981ERCOT opened its first office in 1986 and hired four full-time employees.
1986The Texas Legislature amended the Public Utility Regulatory Act to deregulate the wholesale generation market. The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) began the process of expanding ERCOT's responsibilities to enable wholesale competition and facilitate efficient use of the power grid by all market participants.
January 1995The Texas Wind Power Project, the first commercial wind farm in Texas, began operations in Culberson County.
May 1995On August 21, the PUC endorsed an electric utility joint task force recommendation that ERCOT become an Independent System Operator (ISO) to ensure an impartial, third-party organization was overseeing equitable access to the power grid among the competitive market participants. This change was officially implemented September 11, when the ERCOT Board of Directors restructured its organization and initiated operations as a not-for-profit ISO, making it the first electric utility industry ISO in the United States.
August 1996On May 21, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 7 (SB 7) which required the creation of a competitive retail electricity market to give customers the ability to choose their retail electric providers, starting January 1, 2002.
May 1999From 1999 to 2000, ERCOT sponsored a stakeholder process to address how ERCOT's organization would administer its responsibilities to support the competitive retail and wholesale electricity markets while maintaining the reliability of electric services. In thousands of hours of meetings and mark-up sessions, the stakeholders or market participants worked together to develop new ERCOT protocols, which are the rules and standards for implementing market functions regarding: energy scheduling and dispatch, ancillary services, congestion management, outage coordination, settlement and billing, metering, data acquisition and aggregation, market information systems, transmission and distribution losses, renewable energy credit trading, registration and qualification, market data collection, load profiling and alternative dispute resolution.
2000On January 1, ERCOT launched the competitive retail electric market-on time and on budget-allowing individuals and corporations in most cities to choose power suppliers. SB 7 applied specifically to investor-owned utilities, enabling customer choice for 6.5 million, but allowed municipal utilities and electric cooperatives (approximately 24 percent of the ERCOT load) to decide if they wanted to opt to participate in competition.
January 2002In September, as part of Project 26376, the PUCT ordered ERCOT to develop a nodal wholesale market design, with the goal of improving market and operating efficiencies through more granular pricing and scheduling of energy services.
September 2003In August, ERCOT launched a major transaction system upgrade, culminating a massive two-year project and representing the largest upgrade of the electronic transaction system since the retail market launch. Switching transactions averaged 38,000 per month and 9,000 per day during 2004.
August 2004In September, the Texas Nodal Team submitted draft nodal protocols to the PUCT.
September 2005More than 2 million total customer switches to a competitive retail provider had been completed. Almost one-fourth of residential customers had switched to a competitive retail provider, in addition to 29 percent of small non-residential customers and 72 percent of large non-residential customers
2005On April 5, the PUCT signed an order approving the stakeholder-developed protocols for the nodal market, with an implementation date of January 1, 2009.
April 2006On August 17, a record high demand of 62,339 megawatts of power was used. August 2006
Texas moved ahead of California as the top wind-producing state.
2006Five years after launching the retail market, 46 percent of residential customers had switched from the incumbent utility.
2007A record 3,220 MW of wind generation was added to the ERCOT grid for a total of 8,005 MW, maintaining ERCOT's lead as the top wind-producing state.
2007A new go-live date of December 2010 was announced for the nodal market implementation. Almost 6,600 miles of transmission improvements completed since 1999, and approximately 39,000 MW of new generation added since 1996.
2008On August 23, ERCOT recorded a new record high peak demand of 65,776 MW of power.
August 2010Blue Wing 1, the first utility-scale solar facility in the ERCOT region, began operations in Bexar County.
2010ERCOT set a new all-time summer peak demand of 68,867 MW on August 3, in addition to breaking monthly demand records in February, May, June, July September and December. A new winter peak demand record of 57,315 MW was recorded on Feb. 10. ERCOT also hit an all-time high for wind output on Oct. 7, when wind generation reached 7,400 MW-more than 15 percent of the load at the time. Installed wind capacity surpassed 9,600 MW in 2011-maintaining ERCOT's lead as the top wind producer in North America.
2011Construction of about 3,600 miles of transmission lines is completed, fulfilling a goal set by the Texas Legislature in 2005 and enabling movement of more than 18,000 MW of primarily wind generation from the West Texas and Panhandle regions to more populated regions of the ERCOT grid.
2013Wind generation output topped 10,000 MW on March 26, with 1,433 MW coming from Gulf Coast area generation facilities and most of the remainder coming from the West Texas region.
March 2014System-wide peak demand hit its first new record since 2011, at 69,877 MW on Aug. 10, and eight new output records for wind generation. Wind generation output peaked at 13,883 MW at 11:07 a.m. on Dec. 20. At 3:05 a.m. that same day, wind served up to 44.7 percent of load.
August 2015Installed capacity of grid-scale solar nearly doubled in 2016, from 288 MW to 554 MW, and ERCOT put a new solar forecast in place to support reliable integration of this emerging generation resource.
2016Systemwide demand topped 71 GW, reaching 71,110 MW at 5 p.m. on Aug. 11. Weekend demand also set a new record, at 66,921 MW on Sunday, Aug. 7, at 6 p.m. Monthly demand records in September and grew to 66,853 MW on Sept. 19 and 59,848 MW on Oct. 5. Wind generation also continued to break records in 2016 as installed capacity grew to more than 17,000 MW by November. Instantaneous output set three new records, peaking at 15,033 MW on Nov. 27. The percentage of load served by wind also set three new records in 2016, topping out at 48.28 percent on March 23.
2016