Author: "The First-Line Manager" on Amazon books. Leadership at the bottom of a company
This interview is astounding. Beth Garza admits that ERCOT during a winter or summer supply crisis, even with electric supply interconnections, would not be capable of eliminating rotating outages. She talks about her role with ERCOT to monitor competitive market prices. She said that she and her department were taking the place of elected Public Service Commission regulators. So, Texas has replaced elected regulators with un-elected bureaucrats. The state of Texas does not want any government regulation from the state or the Federal Energy Regulation Commision (FREC). Has this benefited the consumer? She admits she was without power for over 80 hours during the crisis of supply but would only have been out a limited time with rotation outages. Is this what the Texas consumer wants? Did this happen before the break-up of the State Public Service Commission, and the electric supply companies? She seems to be perfectly satisfied that the system will have rotation outages? We have to understand that electricity is not a product, it is a service. This means that even though price is important, more important to our modern lifestyles is constant supply. We live in a computer run society, people working from home, elderly in nursing homes, people in doctor's offices, people in hospitals, electric water and sewer pumps... these services cannot be down for 80 hours much less an hour without affecting our lives. It is amazing to me that we Americans and Texans have bought into this type of broken-up electrical supply system for the sake of Green Energy... wind and Solar generation. All of us will be in the dark if this system continues. (Note: you may not be able to listen to the interview if you are not on Substack.)
Advisor at Calico Energy
9moErcot works just like it was designed to do. Provide the lowest cost electricity to the large users regardless of other considerations. If they had considered reliable supply to be a top consideration they would have designed the market differently.