FERC weighs requiring Texas, other states, to increase connections with other power grids
Photo of James Osborne
James Osborne
Aug. 3, 2023
Updated: Aug. 4, 2023 11 a.m.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/busines...medium=referral
Texas may have to connect its transmission lines to those of neighboring states under rules being considered by federal regulators.


WASHINGTON — Two years after Winter Storm Uri knocked out power to millions and killed hundreds of Texans, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is weighing whether to institute tough new rules that could force power grids in Texas and other states to connect with one another to reduce the chance of a large-scale blackout.

Politicians in Texas have long resisted connecting to other grids out of concern it would bring them under greater regulation by FERC, leaving their power grid, run by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, with little ability to import electricity from other states in times of distress.

A spokesperson for FERC on Wednesday said its rulemaking around increasing interconnection capacity between grids, which is in the preliminary stages, could include Texas, under the agency's authority to set reliability standards for ERCOT.

"Whether, and to what extent, Texas is implicated would depend on the specific action that FERC takes and under what authority it takes that action," she said. "As of now, the Commission has not put forward any particular proposal on interregional transfer capability."

Among power grid operators around the country, there is growing anxiety about their systems' ability to withstand the effects of more extreme heat waves, storms and wildfires, as well as the early retirement of many coal and nuclear power plants.

At a FERC workshop in December, Commissioner Mark Christie, a Republican, pointed to electricity transfers between power grids in the Midwest and Southwest during the February 2021 storm that "were essential to keeping lights on during that extreme weather event."

"There are really two easy lessons from that incident," Christie said. "One is interregional transfers can certainly support reliability and be essential in an extreme weather event like Uri. Lesson No. 2, we have interregional transfer capacity. The question is, is it enough?"

A spokesperson for the Texas Public Utility Commission, which oversees ERCOT, declined to comment on the rulemaking underway in Congress and at FERC.-- excerpt, rest at link above --