EUC approves short extension to UPlan modeling contract while staff issues market solicitation

The Electric Utility Commission on July 15 approved an amendment to extend Austin Energy’s contract for continued service and support of its UPlan production-cost modeling software while the utility issues a solicitation to review other modeling tools.

Michael Enger, vice president of EnergyMark Operations Resource Planning, told commissioners Austin Energy has used UPlan for about 15 years and that the utility will issue a request for proposals in August to "recanvass the market and see what other tools might be available." He said the requested contract amendment would extend the existing contract for up to two years while the solicitation proceeds and staff evaluates proposals. "We were intending about a year ago to issue an RFP ... we are actually going to be releasing that I believe in August," Enger said.

Enger said UPlan is the utility’s principal production-cost model and that staff also uses a stochastic model for price and correlation analysis and a power-flow tool for transmission studies. He added UPlan is well established for utility-scale resources but noted limitations in how models handle uncertainty in weather and distributed energy resources. "UPlan is a very good production cost model. It's a little bit more on the utility scale side than DERs, but you can model DERs in it as well," Enger said.

Commissioners asked whether UPlan would be replaced; Enger said the August solicitation could produce awards for other tools or for UPlan with additional modules. Commissioner Gillette moved approval; Commissioner Braden seconded. The motion carried unanimously.

Next steps: Staff will issue the RFP, evaluate proposals, and return to council for approval of any new award. The contract extension is a bridge while the competitive process concludes.