“The additional cost from last June is $1 per household, per month” he said. On Tuesday, PUC Chairman Peter Lake said it has cost ratepayers $380 million to purchase additional backup power to make sure the lights stay on during high demand periods like this one. So far, customers are picking up the tab. And when they do make investments, the question then becomes who will pay for the improvements, shareholders or customers? Generators need to know what type of money they can make before making significant investments in power plants, transmission and other infrastructure. The PUC is still in the process of rewriting the rules for wholesale power markets.Ī lot is at stake for generators, electric customers and the grid. It must rely on market incentives to get power generators and transmission builders to make investments that would improve the grid’s reliability.Īfter the catastrophic failure of state’s electrical system in February 2021, the Legislature concluded that the Texas market was not providing those incentives, and authorized the Public Utility Commission to revamp it. On : ERCOT promises Texans the power grid will not crash this summer: 'The lights are going to stay on'ĮRCOT doesn’t build power plants or transmission lines, nor does it have the power to order companies to do so. ERCOT has made some planning mistakes, but criticizing ERCOT for tight power supplies is like faulting a gas station attendant for the price of gas. One megawatt is enough to power about 200 homes on a hot summer day.ĮRCOT, our state’s nonprofit grid manager, gets a lot of grief when things go wrong, or when grid conditions get tight. The highest use of electricity (ever!) on our grid? It was about 74,800 megawatts in August 2019.
#ERCOT GRID GENERATOR#
As the Texas Tribune reported, at least one power generator that deferred maintenance to come back online was forced to shut down because of unexpected problems.Īlthough we are still months away from the worst of the Texas summer, peak demand topped 70,000 megawatts during the recent heat wave. Putting off maintenance can create its own problem. On May 4, ERCOT urged power generators to delay scheduled maintenance and come back online to meet demand from the abnormally hot weather - a warning extended through Friday.
That cushion evaporated this month when record temperatures sent the demand for electricity sky-high.
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