Texas lawmakers will meet Thursday to discuss the state’s independent power grid.
The downside of an independent energy market left millions of Texans without power for days and is now spooking some residents with five-figure energy bills, as Texas lawmakers look to investigate the failures of the nation’s only state-operated power grid. Texas is the only state in the nation that operates its own electrical grid, and because key operations are confined within state lines, ERCOT effectively operates without direct federal oversight (thanks to the Federal Power Act signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935). That leaves the Public Utility Commission of Texas to regulate prices in collaboration with ERCOT. Though the arrangement has helped save on energy costs, it also means ERCOT, which manages about 90% of the state’s electrical load, can’t access necessary capacity from the two other grids in the country in the case of an emergency.
