Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed a bill to reform the state's power grid and how it's operated in response to the disastrous energy crisis caused by severe winter storms.
The power systems were not designed to withstand extreme cold, which was the"central cause" of the failures, Bill Magness, former CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which oversees the state's electric grid, told ABC News in February. In addition, there were outages because power generation from coal, natural gas, wind and solar sources fell below expected output levels due to the weather.
The new legislation includes"comprehensive reforms to fix all of the flaws that led to the power failure," Abbott said Tuesday during the signing, including directives for power companies and some natural gas companies to upgrade facilities and weatherize the power grid, and a requirement for regulators to create an emergency alert system for when inclement weather and power outages are imminent.
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