Oct 12, 2017 | Legislative Watch
You flip a switch, your lights come on. The more power you use, the bigger your bill. It sounds simple and it is — and yet just below the surface lurks a tangle of engineering constraints, big-moneyed interests and a fantastically complex wholesale power market. And...
Aug 31, 2017 | Legislative Watch
Hurricane Harvey knocked out service at power plants and across giant transmission lines — but the ERCOT electric grid weathered the storm. All told, power stopped flowing across six of the state’s massive 345 kilovolt lines, as well as across 91 138 kV lines and 138...
Dec 19, 2016 | Legislative Watch
Switch-holds — that controversial practice that allows electric companies to block Texans under certain conditions from getting service to light their homes, run their air conditioners or power their refrigerators — is in the news again. The Houston Chronicle reports...
Aug 3, 2016 | Legislative Watch
Proposed rule changes for the state’s power grid — changes that some feared would lead to higher wholesale electric prices around Houston — have been rejected by a key stakeholder panel at ERCOT. Had it received the panel’s endorsement, the proposals would have...
May 9, 2014 | Legislative Watch
A massive transmission project that could lower electric prices in Houston has won approval from the operator of the Texas power grid — despite objections from two major generation companies. Dubbed the Houston Import Project, the transmission lines will cost an...
