The ERCOT RTC+B Program: What to Know and How to Prepare

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The system-wide offer cap for the DAM is $5,000/MWh and $2,000/MWh for the RTM. There are rare instances where the LMP may exceed these prices, but this would be an exception (e.g. extreme congestion). This Yes Energy blog has some additional info on exceptions. The system lambda used to determine LMPs and the real-time MCPCs (ancillary service clearing prices) will be capped at the effective VOLL, which is currently $35,000/MWh according to the latest PUCT reliability standard adopted in August 2024.

ERCOT has announced changes impacting 65 CDRs (including new reports, modifying existing reports, and some report retirement); however, ERCOT has not yet released a list of all impacted CDRs.

Typically, the SCED runs and updates every five minutes in the real-time market. This includes when ERCOT RTC+B goes into effect. Under RTC+B, ERCOT's SCED engine will be enhanced to simultaneously optimize both energy and AS at a similar five-minute interval.

With respect to the publication of SCED once RTC+B goes live: Our team is not aware of concrete details published by ERCOT yet around whether all SCED data will be immediately publicly available or if some portions will be delayed.

From an offer perspective, RTC+B does not change the fundamental market premise that energy and ancillary services are offered to the market based on the marginal cost to the resource of providing those services.

What will be new from an energy clearing price perspective is that the LMP calculation will now also include the opportunity cost of providing reserves. The expectation is that through the process of co-optimization, a more optimal, least-cost mix of energy and reserves will be achieved, resulting in lower overall costs to the system. These lower costs will be due in part to reduced energy prices, on average over time, relative to the energy prices that would be realized in the absence of co-optimization.

It's too early to say with certainty, as this is a new market feature. Virtual participation will add liquidity and market competition, which may have a material and disruptive impact on existing DART price spreads particularly at the onset of the market launch. We anticipate that over time, the additional DAM liquidity will contribute to greater price convergence between the DA and RT, i.e., reduced DART spreads. 

The Updated Desired Base Point (UDBP) will be retired and replaced with the Updated Desired Set Point (UDSP). The UDSP includes information similar to the UDBP (i.e. four-minute ramp instruction) but now will also include resource-specific signals for regulation deployment.

Put another way, UDBP = four-minute ramp instruction, UDSP = four-minute ramp instruction + regulation instructions (as applicable).

Virtual participation in AS bidding under RTC+B will be purely financial, just like virtual energy offers/bids today, and will not require physical qualification to participate.

Market trials data is available via the PowerSignals Time Series Analysis module and the DataSignals API. The easiest way to find market trial data in the data catalog is to select ERCOT as the ISO and then search for "RTC."

Pre-RTC with Gen 1 maxed out, the LMP is set by the cost of the next MWh of energy coming from Gen 2, so that is $150/MWh. Post RTC+B, AS can move to Gen 2. The AS cost goes from $5/MWh (Gen 1) to $20/MWh (Gen 2), for a net gain of $15/MWh for AS costs.

However, Gen 1 can then provide more energy, having moved its AS obligation to Gen 2. This means that the cost of the next MWh of energy would come from Gen 1 and be $50/MWh. So post-RTC+B, the LMP = energy + delta AS = $50/MWh (energy) + $15/MWh (delta AS).

Yes.

Batteries, or ESRs, will now be modeled as a single resource. The telemetry changes for ESRs, including state of charge, are included in this checklist available from ERCOT. ESRs will continue to be expected to provide SOC-related telemetry items such as SOC (MWh), Max SOC (MWh), Min SOC (MWh), Max Operating Discharge Power Limit (MW), and Max Operating Charge Power Limit (MW).

The SCED will incorporate SOC into the market optimization, ensuring that awards to ESRs are feasible. The awards for each ESR will be limited based on a number of inputs, including SOC information.

This will be different from today, where currently it's the responsibility of the QSE to ensure sufficient SOC to cover its responsibilities.

Yes, there will still be a price adder report post-RTC. While the market trials version of this report is currently included in Group 1, the post-RTC production version of this report will be included in Group 3 (available after go-live). The EMIL ID will remain NP6-323-CD but the report name will change from “Real-Time ORDC and Reliability Deployment Price Adders and Reserves by SCED Interval” to “Real-Time Price Adders by SCED Interval” and include RTC+B specific data.

While the ORDC-related price adders will be going away under RTC+B and excluded from the new version of the report, there will still be a Real-Time Reliability Deployment Price Adder (RTRDPA) included in the new report. See both reports linked above for more details on the changes being made to adders post-RTC.

The large delta is likely a cause of RTC+B testing being a current and ongoing process in a test environment. In the Weekly RTC+B Market Trials Webex, ERCOT mentioned that pricing data is still not perfect since there is scarcity in the RTC+B system. This is because energy bids are not necessarily being replicated in the RTC+B system around the clock.

AS offers are now required in RT on account of the co-optimization of AS and energy by SCED. RTC+B Market Trials data is dependent on participation in the trials, but there has been extremely high participation from QSEs in market trials. ERCOT had 100% QSE participation in the LFC closed loop test on September 11, 2025. You may be interested in looking at the data for September 11, 2025, between 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. CST. This is when ERCOT was conducting its closed loop LFC test, and RTC+B was the production system during this time. Based on initial observations, prices seemed to be comparable between current production and the RTC+B system.