Nodal Sandbox Environment

ERCOT has implemented a pre-early delivery system (EDS) environment for the Texas Nodal Market Implementation Program that will allow for the testing of interaction between market participants (MPs) and ERCOT. This environment is named the Nodal Sandbox.

This environment will enable qualified scheduling entities (QSEs) and ERCOT to work together in a collaborative effort to establish the most appropriate machine-to-machine architecture and interfaces, which will be used in the future for EDS-preliminary and formal testing during readiness verification and QSE qualification.

The Nodal Sandbox will have multiple releases during the course of the nodal program with each release adding additional functionality. This information will be revised during the program to reflect the future release dates and functionality.

ERCOT encourages MPs to interact with the Nodal Sandbox throughout its evolution so the market as a whole has ample time and opportunity to verify technology and gain a detailed understanding of the nodal Web services.

The Nodal Sandbox is initially a lightweight test environment. It should be used to validate connectivity, understanding of specific Web services, and technical architecture. This environment is not intended for application functionality, stress, stability, or full production verification. All of the services in the Nodal Sandbox are loopbacks and do not interact with other applications.