ERCOT Zonal Database for Aurora

Energy Exemplar is pleased to announce the General Availability of the new ERCOT Zonal Database for Aurora. This release was updated using the latest information available including but not limited to:

· ERCOT Carveout – All non-ERCOT information was removed from the database, resulting in enhanced performance.
· Long Term Capacity Expansion – Added all necessary data and executed an Aurora exclusive long-term expansion plan until Year 2050. Also added Batteries as a New Resource option in Aurora.
· Resource Update – Applied as an update to Aurora with variations from the last release enabling tracing with the last update.
· Transmission Update – Region to region zonal transmission limits have been updated based on the 2020 ERCOT SSWG power flow case and validated based on a comparison to historical congestion.
· Start Costs – Added as a separate cost to Aurora and removed from VO&M as it was implemented in previous releases.
· Fuel Consolidation – Fuels with multiple ship channels have been consolidated to one natural gas ship channel.
· Fuel Prices – Used a single forecast from Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI) resulting in a longer, more granular, and more consistent forecast.
· Load – Updated historical and forecasted load based on weather zone data from ERCOT.
· Financial Base Year – Updated the base year for all financial data so that is expressed in 2020 dollars (was 2012).