Access More ERCOT Historical Data to Optimize Asset Operations

Historically, the entities controlling power flows have been reluctant to disclose generation data, especially at a granular level because it can inhibit market competition.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), however, does publish resource-level data in its 60-day Security Constrained Economic Dispatch (SCED) and 60-day Day-Ahead Market (DAM) disclosure reports.

These datasets, published daily on a 60-day lag, are critical to utilities, financial traders, and asset managers when making assumptions about future grid behavior. They provide market participants with a more complete picture of what generating units and energy storage resources (ESR), such as batteries, were doing at a point in time for the market. As a result, customers can conduct more robust historical analyses to optimize their asset operations.

In response to high customer demand, Yes Energy’s Data Signals® Cloud and Data Signals® Lake products now include all 20 of ERCOT’s 60-day SCED and 60-day DAM disclosure reports. Access to the robust historical data in Yes Energy allows you to gather competitive intelligence to understand how other asset operators are bidding assets into the market. In addition, you can use this data as an input to AI/ML models to predict future market conditions. 

While the Yes Energy platform previously included the five most common 60-day reports, our data-savvy customers requested we complete the dataset. We made the remaining 14 reports available at the end of September. At the end of October, ERCOT began publishing a new report entitled, “Energy Offer Curve Updates in Operating Hour.” This new report is also available via DataSignals Cloud and the team is working to provide this data via DataSignals Lake soon. 

ERCOT 60-Day SCED and DAM Disclosure Report Data Now Available

* Previously included in DataSignals Cloud and DataSignals Lake
** New report initialized by ERCOT on October 22, 2024; at this time, this report is available in DataSignals Cloud only.

DataSignals Cloud and Lake now include 60-day SCED and DAM data going back to November 2, 2021. 

The Value of 60-Day ERCOT SCED and DAM Data

Access to the full complement of 60-day ERCOT data provides you with improved visibility into the operation and participation of generators and batteries in both the day-ahead and real-time energy markets, plus the ancillary services market. The ancillary services market addresses imbalances between electricity supply and demand and assists in system recovery during disruptions.

By evaluating the historical performance of other market participants’ assets, utilities, financial traders and asset managers can better understand where market prices are going and what’s driving the market. These data points enable participants, particularly battery operations managers, to better prepare for future grid conditions, optimize assets, and produce more reliable financial forecasts.

Amplifying Your Data Analysis

While the 60-day data is available to download directly from the ERCOT website, leveraging it via the DataSignals Cloud and Lake saves time and data operations costs. With Yes Energy, there’s no need to pay a data engineer to scrape and store the data in your own database – you have a trusted partner who will take care of that for you.

Plus, we have a dedicated market monitoring team that tracks changes to existing ERCOT reports by attending the organization’s stakeholder meetings and reviewing market notices. For example, this summer our market monitoring team learned that ERCOT was adding a new file to the 60-Day SCED report in October. That information was communicated to our data operations team so they could modify our collectors to begin ingesting the new file as soon as it became available. 

Similarly, our market monitoring team learned about changes to the ERCOT Contingency Reserve Service (ECRS) ancillary product months before its summer 2023 release. By attending stakeholder meetings, we communicated the changes to our data operations team so our collectors could be modified to ingest the new columns related to ECRS in the 60-day reports. 

Accessing 60-day ERCOT DAM and SCED data through the Yes Energy platform also allows you to join that data with other datasets in DataSignals Cloud and Lake. This means you can conduct analyses more quickly than if you scraped and stored data in your own on-premises database.

For example, you can join the 60-day data with generator unit information, location, capacity, fuel type, and zone data to create hyper-accurate forecasts and drive data-informed decisions. 

A Powerful Tool for Energy Storage Resource Owners

The chart below, created using the 60-day ERCOT data set through the DataSignals Cloud and Lake, demonstrates how ESR owners can leverage this data to their benefit. 

The chart shows all battery offers since September 2022, with the offers bucketed by price range. Note that in July 2023, the volume of offers below $200 per GW is fairly low. As a result, prices in ERCOT skyrocketed as demand for electricity to power air-conditioners increased during the summer heat wave. 

Source: Yes Energy

However, by the following July, it’s a completely different picture. Considerably more low-cost offers from battery operators appeared in the market, and as a result, market prices fell in July 2024. The increase in offers is likely because of recent capacity expansions in the market – ERCOT expects battery capacity will reach 12.6 GW by the end of 2024, a 157% jump from 2023 levels (source).

Batteries have historically participated in the ancillary services market because they can respond to supply and demand fluctuations faster than conventional generators. Battery operators also receive tax credits to incentivize their participation in the ancillary market. With no similar incentives available in the real-time market, operators have been reluctant to clear offers in the SCED. 

However, as the ancillary market becomes more saturated with new battery energy storage clearing interconnection queues and coming online, operators may choose to increase their participation in the real-time market.

With a better understanding of the grid and operational behaviors provided by DataSignals data products, operators will have the visibility necessary to determine if the real-time market can be profitable.

The analysis of battery offers is even more powerful when joined with ERCOT zone data using Yes Energy’s object relationships.

Zonal Monthly Average SCED Real-Time ESR Energy Offer Capacity by Price Level

Source: Yes Energy

As you can see in the chart above, all zones had an increase in battery offers of less than $200 in recent months. Notably, the West and South zones have historically had a larger share of sub $200 offers. This could be because of battery pricing reflecting the downward price pressures generally found in the regions. The North Zone has only recently started seeing smaller battery offers. 

This type of competitive intelligence helps you understand how other asset operators are bidding assets into the market so you can optimize your assets and make more accurate assumptions about future grid behavior.

Optimize ERCOT Participation with DataSignals

Yes Energy’s DataSignals Cloud and DataSignals Lake deliver powerful, insightful, and actionable data on nodal power markets. Engineered and model-ready in the format most suited to your business needs, Yes Energy has a data delivery solution to translate comprehensive energy market data into actionable insights to power your business. 

Contact Yes Energy to schedule a demo and learn how the full complement of ERCOT historical data can optimize your participation in the power market. 

About the author: Allison Hurley is the product manager for market data. Formerly a member of Yes Energy’s customer support team, she enjoys working with clients to fix data issues and identify what new datasets can be collected to support their needs. Previously, she spent five years as a natural gas and LNG analyst.

About the author: Alex Bennitt is the product manager for Live Power and partner content integration at Yes Energy, where he utilizes a background in market fundamentals and Live Power operations to help steer product direction. Over the past seven years, Alex rotated through many roles within Live Power operations, from deploying sensors in the field to calibrating raw sensor data, and most recently running a market fundamentals team. In his free time, Alex is an avid skier who chases snow almost year-round.