Ex-Texas power grid chief says Abbott ordered him to charge maximum during freeze
Source: yahoo.com
Erin Wed, February 23, 2022, 2:51 PM·
The former head of the Texas power grid on Wednesday testified that he was ordered by Gov. Greg Abbott to keep power prices at the maximum price cap during last winter's winter storm, the Houston Chronicle reports.
Driving the news: Bill Magness, the former CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, said that former Public Utility Commission Chair DeAnn Walker told him that he was to do whatever necessary to prevent additional blackouts.
"She told me the governor had conveyed to her if we emerged from rotating outages it was imperative they not resume," Magness said Wednesday. "We needed to do what we needed to do to make it happen."...................................................
Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/ex-texas-power-grid-chief-205148041.html
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BREAKING: Texas' ERCOT has announced tight grid conditions tonight thru Friday. So just remember when your power goes out that when Texas Republicans and Greg Abbott had the chance to pass *real* reforms to the grid, they passed abortion bans and voter suppression laws instead.
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Ex-ERCOT chief says he was following Abbott's direction to halt blackouts when they ran up billions in bills during freeze
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/ercot-chief-abbott-direction-power-outage-storm-16941019.php?utm_campaign=premiumchron_breakingnews_20220223&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email
Updated: Feb. 23, 2022 4:18 p.m.
The former head of the Texas power grid testified in court Wednesday that when he ordered power prices to stay at the maximum price cap for days on end during last year’s frigid winter storm and blackout, running up billions of dollars in bills for power companies, he was following the direction of Governor Greg Abbott.
Bill Magness, the former CEO of the Electric Reliabilty Council of Texas, said even as power plants were starting come back online former Public Utility Commission Chairman DeAnn Walker had told him that Abbott wanted them to do whatever necessary to prevent further rotating blackouts that left millions of Texans without power.
“She told me the governor had conveyed to her if we emerged from rotating outages it was imperative they not resume,” Magness testified. “We needed to do what we needed to do to make it happen.”
RELATED: Brazos bankruptcy case set to open, with $1.9 billion in unpaid power bills at stake
Last year the governor's spokesman, Mark Miner said the governor was not “involved in any way” in the decision to keep prices at the maximum of $9,000 per megawatt hour – more than 150 times normal prices. He described a decision to send an aide to ERCOT's operations center in the middle of the crisis as based on the feeling the grid operator was spewing “disinformation."
"As Texans would expect, Governor Abbott instructed everyone involved that they must do what was needed to keep the power on and to prevent the loss of life. This is the same instruction Governor Abbott gave to the PUC and ERCOT earlier this year: do what needs to be done to keep the power on," Miner said in an email Wednesday afternoon.......................
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