Who’s Who in the Texas Electricity Market: ERCOT
By energy_linguist, September 9, 2009, FAQs, News
Continuing my examinations of the "players" in Texas electricity, today, I'm examining the relationship between the PUCT and ERCOT.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) operates the Texas electric grid and manages 75 percent of the deregulate electricity market in the state, making it a power player (pun intended) for a large portion of electricity in Texas.
Managing the flow of power to 22 million Texans is no small venture, and ERCOT manages that and more with a grid that delivers more than 85 percent of the state’s electricity load. ERCOT also maintains somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 miles of transmission lines and 550 generation units across the state. If that wasn't the kicker, ERCOT also oversees financial settlements for the wholesale bulk-power market in Texas as well as customer switching for more than 6.5 million Texans in deregulated areas.
The PUCT is specifically responsible for oversight of ERCOT and ensuring that market rules are in place to protect consumers from market manipulation, power abuse and anticompetitive business practices.
Part 3 comes tomorrow. Read part one here (The Role of the PUCT).
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