Customer
Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the Texas Independent System Operator
Challenge
The energy landscape is rapidly changing, especially for Texas’s unique energy marketplace and electricity grid. New offerings, disruptive technologies, complex regulations and accompanying rule changes, and expanding offerings were instigating huge growth for ERCOT. ERCOT recognized that it needed to identify and respond to the transformative trends, challenges, and opportunities, and find a way to achieve their dual mandate to ensure both reliability of the electricity grid and competitive markets. ERCOT needed to develop a strategic plan with three business objectives:
- To assimilate critical knowledge and experience with best practices that have been used outside Texas
- To achieve stakeholder and regulatory acceptance
- To recognize that there are trends and forecasts that must be examined and anticipated to guide the process.
Assignment
To ensure that the diverse stakeholder views were included in the Strategic Plan, DNV started the process with discussions among internal and external stakeholder groups to identify the major trends that could affect ERCOT. With a baseline set, DNV then worked closely with the Board and executive team to clarify the main strategic tenets that would guide the organization toward its goals over the coming five years in the face of the current and emerging trends. This process culminated in the development of a plan for the future built upon four strategic “pillars” that will be the basis for ERCOT’s activities for the next five years. The strategic core includes:
- Operational reliability
- Flexible market design
- Data transparency and access
- Committee strategic alignment
Benefits
With a strategic plan from DNV, ERCOT now has a five-year framework to focus the organizational alignment, budgets, processes and systems in order to effectively pursue its charge to operate a reliable and efficient electric grid for most of Texas.