Michael Giberson Deep in the heart of the competitive wholesale and retail electric power market that is (the ERCOT system in) Texas lies a little island of small-scale socialism: the municipal electric utility called Austin Energy. While power prices are dropping all around the state due to low natural gas prices, in the Texas state …
Michael Giberson Laylan Copelin, reporting for the Austin American-Statesman, documents the power system resource issues currently troubling state utility regulators in Texas: “State set to grapple again with question: How to encourage more private-sector power generation?” Texas suffered one rolling blackout last winter and narrowly avoided another this summer. The weather extremes might have exposed …
Michael Giberson The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) have issued their report on the events surrounding electric power and natural gas supply interruptions around the Southwest United States in early February, 2001. The culprit? According to the press release: “the task force found a majority of the …
Michael Giberson The Texas Reliability Entity has issued its report on the ERCOT extreme cold weather events and rolling blackouts of February 2, 2011. Texas RE is the NERC regional entity for the ERCOT power system and contracted to the Public Utility Commission of Texas to serve as ERCOT reliability monitor for the state agency. In …
Ercot Reliability Monitor Issues Report on the February 2 Rolling Blackouts Read More »
Michael Giberson The ERCOT independent market monitor (IMM) has released its report on the February 2, 2011 rolling blackouts. Excerpts from the report introduction are below, but let’s get to the meat of the matter. The IMM was asked (1) whether there was any evidence that market participants tried to manipulate the market for financial …
Independent Monitor Finds No Market Abuse During Ercot Rolling Blackouts on February 2 Read More »
Michael Giberson Two groups of municipal utilities in Texas, long critical of electric power deregulation in Texas and ERCOT in particular, have joined forces to issue a report, “The story of ERCOT: The grid operator, power market & prices under Texas electric deregulation.” The municipals describe the report as examining “governance issues related to ERCOT as …
Is the Deregulated Market in the Ercot Region Sufficiently Competitive? Read More »
Michael Giberson A regulatory filing by Energy Futures Holdings Corp., the parent company of Luminant, a major power generator in the Texas market, provides a small peak behind the curtain of confidentiality that has limited the public’s view of what all went wrong on February 2. A small peak, but a significant story: In an …
Ercot Rolling Blackout News: Powerful Market Forces Already at Work Read More »
Michael Giberson A collection of news and commentary on the February 2 rolling blackouts on the ERCOT grid in Texas. KVUE: After blackouts, PUC member seeks authority to fire ERCOT CEO WFAA: Public Utility Commission grills ERCOT top exec on rolling blackouts Associated Press: Railroad Commission questions industry performance WFAA: Quest for cheap fuel led …
Roundup of News and Commentary on the Texas Rolling Blackouts Read More »
Michael Giberson Last week the sharply colder temperatures wreaked havoc on many power generators in Texas, leading to emergency conditions and rolling blackouts on the ERCOT power system. In my preliminary reaction to the developments, I said: No doubt coal and gas-fueled generators across the state are reexamining their readiness for extreme coal weather. I …
More Cold for Texas and a Test of My Conjecture on Preparedness Read More »
Michael Giberson During part of the electric power emergency in the ERCOT region of Texas last week, the ERCOT system imported power from Mexico to reduce the extent of the blackouts needed to keep the ERCOT grid operating. The interconnections between ERCOT/Texas and Mexico are relatively recent. The summary of the March 2009 meeting of …
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