A new tariff approved Thursday for Texas Gas Transmission (TGT) sets out an enhanced nominations service (ENS) with an additional 11 nomination cycles each gas day and interruptible (IT) bump times as short as one hour to serve the on-again, off-again power generation load.

Texas Gas filed with FERC for the new service last fall saying some power plant customers had requested the ability to start up gas deliveries quickly to meet changing demand throughout the gas day. The customers said the changeable intra-day service was necessary to meet load adjustments due to sudden weather changes and the availability of renewable power sources dependent on weather.

TGT already has some power plants attached to its system and expects to gain more power plant load as more coal-fired plants switch to natural gas. The new service “will better fit the profile of gas fired generation,” and is aimed at “improving the integration between the natural gas and power industries.

For each nomination cycle, the confirmation deadline is one hour after the nomination deadline and the effective flow time is two hours after the nomination deadline, according to TGT’s revised tariff records.

In an order issued Thursday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) found “that the one-hour proposed notice of bumping provided prior to the confirmation deadline is just and reasonable and complies with our regulations…

“Shippers that contract for interruptible service should be prepared to make adjustments resulting from the inherently contingent character of interruptible service. Texas Gas allows bumped interruptible shippers to make adjustments by renominating any of their bumped volumes at the standard nomination timelines as well as any of the enhanced nomination periods. The one-hour advance notice will provide interruptible shippers with reasonable time to plan whether and how to renominate bumped volumes.”

Critics of the revised tariff records had argued that one-hour notice requirements are not consistent with North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB) standards. But FERC said it had previously found “that ENS service’s interruptible bumping provisions deviate from the requirements set forth in the NAESB standards,” and that any contention that it should not permit deviations from those standards should have been raised on rehearing of that decision, which none of the parties to the TGT filing had requested.

NAESB currently provides shippers with four standard nomination cycles each gas day.

FERC accepted the revised tariff records effective Nov. 1, 2011.

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