Huh. The PUC chair just called into question the "market design" of the deregulated power system. Said she wonders whether an "energy-only" market is still the way to go.
(Just tuned into the Texas Senate hearing on the #TexasBlackouts.)
PUC chair DeAnn Walker now throwing ERCOT under the bus, claims that ERCOT deliberately ignores PUC input.
Sen. Whitmire: "I've got you down as a pretty powerful person," adds that just her position allows her to call attention to problems via the governor, the press, etc.
Sen. Whitmire: "I've got you down as a pretty powerful person," adds that just her position allows her to call attention to problems via the governor, the press, etc.
Whitmire: Are you concerned about ERCOT governance, how the board replaces itself? Refers to its as a "good ol' boy system."
Walker: I have committed to not replace board members until I have direction from the Lege.
Whitmire: We should consider requiring Senate confirmation
Walker: I have committed to not replace board members until I have direction from the Lege.
Whitmire: We should consider requiring Senate confirmation
DeAnn Walker: The highest fine PUC has issued was for $2 million.
(By comparison, the cost of electricity last week was $50.6 BILLION, a/t Bloomberg)
(By comparison, the cost of electricity last week was $50.6 BILLION, a/t Bloomberg)
Listening to testimony about the apparent malfunctioning of the wholesale power market & how PUC had to override the automated pricing system, you just can't help but be struck by how delicate the whole thing is. All of it apparently built to put "the market" entirely in control.
DeAnn Walker: Of 7 million electric customers, 40,000-42,000 are on variable-rate contracts (the kind of contracts where some customers are getting whacked with huge power bills)
Maybe this has been reported elsewhere but I find this astonishing. PUC chair DeAnn Walker just conceded to Sen. Johnson that an algorithm caused power plants to produce less electricity than they could have in the middle of the crisis.
Just to be clear: This means that there could have been more homes with power. Lives may have been lost because of a computer error and the time it took humans to correct it.
DeAnn Walker, responding to Sen. Creighton pressing her on her oversight role of PUC: “I don’t think that I understood the situation and the underlying issues until we lived through this.”
Really confidence-inspiring stuff here
Really confidence-inspiring stuff here
Creighton raking Walker over the coals for not using her authority as PUC chair but then says he's not big on capacity market. Lege doing a great job putting deregulation problems all on the system's overseers.
Lawmakers seem surprised (lol) that the governor has appointed an apparatchik to run an industry oversight agency.
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