As part of the wide-ranging fallout from the Arctic blast that paralyzed Texas in February, state regulators on March 3 ordered the Electric Reliability Council Of Texas Inc., which manages the state's primary wholesale power grid, to "claw back the payments to generators" for services they did not perform.
At the same time, a U.S. congressional panel launched a probe into "decades of blackout events and compromised electric reliability" in Texas.
In line with a recommendation from Potomac Economics Ltd., ERCOT's independent market monitor, the Public Utility Commission of Texas at its March 3 meeting required the grid operator to seek repayment of money that generators received for ancillary services they did not actually provide during the crisis.
"I think that's a no-brainer," Commissioner Arthur D'Andrea said at a PUC meeting. "They were paid for something they didn't do."
The commission did not act on a second recommendation from Potomac to reprice all day-ahead ancillary services clearing prices between Feb. 15 and Feb. 20 at $9,000/MWh to align with a systemwide offer cap the PUC ordered Feb. 15. During the crisis, day-ahead ancillary service prices soared past $20,000/MWh, D'Andrea said, calling the spikes "shocking to a lot of us."
The PUC plans to work with the state Legislature and others on a "forensic audit" of ERCOT's market clearing process and could consider the recommendation at a later date. D'Andrea also asked staff to open a new rulemaking to consider where to cap energy prices going into the summer.
In addition, regulators asked retail electric providers to resume normal billing and late fees that had been suspended for residential and commercial customers, after determining that disputed meter readings showing high usage were correct. They also ordered transmission and distribution utilities to suspend 5% late fees on certain payments from retail electric providers.
Failure to prepare
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott named D'Andrea chair of the PUC on March 3, replacing DeAnn Walker, who resigned March 1 amid harsh criticism of the commission's handling of the crisis.
In a March 3 letter to ERCOT CEO Bill Magness, U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who chairs the House Subcommittee on the Environment, requested documents and information on the grid operator's lack of preparation for the February storm that caused millions of Texans to go without power and heat for several days.
"The risk of increased extreme winter weather events in the United States underscores the need for adequate preparation," Khanna wrote. "ERCOT and the state of Texas are well-aware of the weather predictions, yet you have failed to prepare adequately for them. It is the hope of the subcommittee that greater public attention and accountability will cause this cycle to change."
Pointing to prior extreme winter weather events that led to widespread blackouts in 1989 and in 2011, Khanna asked for a wide range of documents related to the grid failures "in order determine why Texans have endured decades of blackout events and compromised electric reliability."
