Abbott’s plan for ERCOT is for Texans to pay billions of dollars for little better reliability | Opinion
FORT WORTH, TX - FEBRAURY 17: A transmission tower supports power lines after a snow storm on Febraury 17, 2021 in Altamesa Blvd., and Crowley Rd. in Fort Worth, Texas. This op-ed is part of a series published by The Dallas Morning News Opinion section to explore ideas and policies for strengthening electric reliability.
This is a bailout paid for by all Texans. The plan is to borrow money from Texas’s rainy day fund to pay for the state’s energy losses, costs and some upgrades over the next 30 years. The Brattle Group recommended that Texas adopt a capacity market for electricity, which improves grid reliability with a market-based mechanism for generators to be paid for committing to deliver electricity in future years. Perry declined to support the Brattle Group’s suggested transition to a capacity market. Adopting a capacity market might signal that Texas has an energy problem.
Thus began Abbott’s Great Privatization of Profits, resulting in billions of dollars of overcharges, according to ERCOT’s independent market monitor, and billions of dollars of windfall profits to the gas industry. Further, former PUC Chairwoman DeAnn Walker testified in the Brazos Electric Cooperative’s bankruptcy proceeding and was thereafter chastised by federal Judge David Jones for her “lack of candor” and “lack of reliability as a witness.
We deserve to know what costs we’re being asked to pay and what we’re getting in return before we agree to foot the bill. For the past year, folks in Austin have supported the bailout of ERCOT on the expectation that the market operator will remain solvent. Second, the Brazos Electric Cooperative’s bankruptcy proceeding opened last week. Brazos owes ERCOT $1.9 billion in unpaid power bills, and Brazos contends that ERCOT’s own market intervention was the cause. If Brazos is not required to pay ERCOT for all or a portion of its unpaid bills, these bills will be paid by other members of ERCOT and, ultimately, all of us electricity consumers.