Thread by @MoseBuchele

Tweeting some highlights of the House Committee hearing on the Texas blackouts. This wont be comprehensive. Worth remembering that almost everyone who testifies has an interest in deflecting responsibility.

First up. Curt Morgan CEO of Vistra Energy says he was aware a bad storm was coming a week before it hit. Says he contacted state agency's about coming winter storm and was "surprised by the lack of urgency" he encountered.

Vistra's Morgan says the big story here was failure of the gas system to perform from wellhead to processing plants and pipe themselves.

Interesting. Vistra's Morgan says there's a reason Texas plants don't winterize. They would "bake" in the summer.

Vistra's Morgan says critical infrastructure circuits on the grid weren't updates since 2011. (These are circuits that stay on in blackout) “We were turning off power plants," in the blackout. Yikes. Says once they're off you can't just turn them back on.

Morgan also says changing the market system in Texas has to be on the table. (This is likely a heavier political lift than winterization.)

Morgan: Some of our coal froze up. It got wet when it was transported and caused some problems. "We were off a day or so on one of our big coal plants."

Both Vista's Morgan and NRG's Gutierrez identify the lack of gas availability and gas pressure in the pipelines as the main concern.

Dramatic stuff from Vistra's Morgan. On grid "frequency event" He says "We came within three minutes at Comanche Peak of losing Comanche Peak (Nuclear Plant) we came dangerously close to losing the entire Eelectric system.

NRG's Mauricio Gutierrez talking about how unprecedented the weather conditions were, even compared to 2011 (last blackout we had).

Vista's Morgan says he saw a "lack of urgency" in ERCOT in lead up to storm "based on the actions" he saw.

Lot of talk about grid "frequency." I think about it in this way. The grid needs to vibrate at a certain level. If that vibration changes because electricity supply / demand go out of whack, the whole thing breaks. Here's a piece I did a couple years ago: kut.org/energy-environ…

@mattlargey has a piece on this most recent "frequency event" and how it almost fried the grid here:
kut.org/energy-environ…

Vistra's Morgan says something I've thinking about. Even if gas infrastructure had held "we still would have had outages... and they would have been rolling." That, of course, would have been preferable to the grid "lock down" we got.

Texas lawmakers asking a lot of questions about communications between ERCOT and power plant operators.

Question: Should ERCOT have acted sooner?
NRG's Gutierrez: It seems like there was some lag.

Now Rep. Rafael Anchia asking questions focusing on Public Utility Commission "that's the governor's handpicked team to regulate this market."

Will be away from hearing for a bit. Note: House hearing is still on its first witnesses. 😐

Both CEOs of big power companies say the variable rate plans that lead to huge electric bills (like Griddy) should be illegal. NRG's Gutierrez "consumers shouldn’t be exposed to real time wholesale electric prices. These plans from my perspective shouldn’t be allowed”

Just jumped on to the State Senate hearing for a second. It appeared to be devolving into a bought of wind power bashing. #nothelpful

bout!

It was State Senator Angela Paxton asking about the wind power. She was asked to focus on blackout issues by (I believe) State Senator Kelly Hancock.

"We're accountable to the PUC for everything" ERCOT CEO Magness tells Texas State Senate. "They oversee everything we do." In response to question from State Sen. Whitemire

CEO Magness now talking about the "operators" at ERCOT HQ who monitor the grid in the State Senate. They come from all sorts of backgrounds.

I've visited ERCOT headquarters in Taylor twice. I've thought a lot about the people who sit in those desks in the "mission control" looking room. These are the operators who make the call to do blackouts in the moment. Tremendous amount of pressure.