NPRR685  Change Criteria for Resource Opportunity Outages

This Nodal Protocol Revision Request (NPRR) broadens the criteria for Resources to begin Opportunity Outages prior to already approved Planned Outages. Currently the Nodal Protocol language in Section 3.1.6.10, Opportunity Outage, only allows a Resource owner to begin an Opportunity Outage prior to a previously scheduled Planned Outage when the Resource is forced offline due to a Forced Outage. During the initial drafting of the Nodal Protocols, Texas Nodal Team discussions obviously anticipated the need to allow a Resource to begin a Planned Outage early when the unit tripped close to the Planned Outage start date. However, market experience to date has shown that Opportunity Outages, absent a Forced Outage, make sense for both the Resource Owner as well as the market at large when prevailing market fundamentals do not indicate the Resource is economic to run. Calpine recommends that the language that contains the criteria for Opportunity Outage be broadened to include both Resources experiencing a Forced Outage prior to Planned Outages as well as Resource owners simply desiring to start a Planned Outage early in response to market economics.