As temperatures continued to drop, ERCOT began to warn of the potential for short generation supply. Oncor controllers began preparing for a controlled outage event. On Feb. 15th at 1:20 am, ERCOT instructed Oncor to shed its share of 1,000 MW, or 361 MW. Ultimately, ERCOT directed transmission and distribution utilities in Texas to shed approximately 20,000 MW, of which Oncor was responsible for shedding approximately 7,200 MW.
Generation continued to be in short supply until late Wednesday, Feb. 17th when ERCOT officially ended the load shed event. Over 1.3 million premises in Oncor’s service territory alone were out of power and the vast majority were the result of the load shedding. Oncor personnel worked around the clock during these events to restore customers who had lost power due to the winter storms and the extreme cold.
Governor Abbott, the Texas Legislature, the Public Utility Commission of Texas (“PUCT”), the Texas Attorney General’s Office and other governmental and regulatory bodies have launched inquiries or taken other actions, including the PUCT’s issuance on Sunday, Feb. 21st of a moratorium on disconnections for customers’ inability to pay.
Operational Highlights
2020 was an unprecedented year for Oncor, on many fronts. Not only did COVID-19 force Oncor to change the way it does business, altering its field operations and sending its corporate center staff to work remotely, but it brought on significant challenges for many of the customers Oncor serves.
Safety is at the very core of everything Oncor employees do. On the safety front, 2020 was one of the best safety years in the history of the company. Oncor did not have a Lost Time Incident (LTI) in 2020 – the last LTI was in late-2019 – and was able to achieve industry top quartile performance in Days Away Restricted or Transferred (DART) making 2020 the second best safety year in Oncor’s history.
Improved reliability of service continues to be a major focus for Oncor. For the industry’s primary benchmark for reliability, System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI-nonstorm), Oncor improved significantly in the twelve months ended December 31, 2020 compared to the twelve months ended December 31, 2019. On average, Oncor’s customers saw almost five minutes fewer of outage over the year – an improvement of approximately 6%, and placing Oncor in the industry top quartile for reliability two years ahead of Oncor’s previously announced expectations.
Additionally, Oncor’s service territory continued to grow with the connection of approximately 18,000 additional premises in the fourth quarter of 2020 and approximately 77,000 additional premises in 2020. This represents the best organic premise growth ever experienced by Oncor and demonstrates the strength and economic diversity of Oncor’s service territory. On the transmission side, Oncor also set a company record for the number of new generation interconnection requests it received in 2020, driven by strong movement in utility-scale generation activity, with a focus on the renewable and utility-scale battery storage markets.
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