Balancing energy deployment oscillation in ERCOT market

The movement towards restructuring in the electric industry in the United States intensifies the need for a carefully crafted market design. Currently ERCOT is the only ISO using a zonal commercial model. The zonal model provides market participants with the ability to commit their units based on a submitted portfolio schedule; however, this model introduces several operational challenges, including constraint and deployment oscillation. By providing a useful description of some of the problems encountered within the ERCOT market and the design revisions suggested to resolve the issues, this paper can be a useful resource to policymakers in potential RTOs, especially those who are in the process of determining a market model.