Texas representatives send letter to Public Utility Commission

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) - Some Texas Representatives are worried the power grid won’t be strong enough to keep Texans warm this winter.

On Thursday, Texas Senator Charles Schwertner posted a letter on Facebook that he and other Texas representatives signed and sent to the Public Utility Commission. Schwertner stressed in his post that Texas needs to build a “new dispatchable energy resource” that can be used when the power grid is stressed by extreme weather. In his post, Schwertner said that the commission’s current market design “falls short” of that fundamental goal.

In the last session, the legislature unanimously passed SB 3 (87R) to improve the reliability of the Texas electric grid which included a crucial directive to the commission to “incentivize more dispatchable generation,” Schwertner said in the letter. He also said that SB 3 instructed the commission to establish a “reliability standard” for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) market and to use it in order to develop a new “reliability service”.

The Commission recently released a report called “Assessment of Market Reform Options to Enhance Reliability of the ERCOT System” however Schwertner said in the letter that it did not include any evaluation of the reliability service product directed by SB 3.

In the letter, Schwertner called for the commission to define their “reliability goals before moving forward with any significant “market redesign” and asked it to evaluate the impact of a new market-based reliability service that would include strong penalties for when providers under perform.

You can view Schwertner’s post and letter below.