5 quit Texas electric council after freeze
By MAY ZHOU in Houston |
China Daily Global |
Updated: 2021-02-25 12:14
An aerial view of an electrical substation in Houston, Texas on Feb 21, 2021. [Photo/Agencies]
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) was anything but reliable when Texas was frozen over last week. The state's power grid overseen by ERCOT became so unreliable that 4 million people were left without power amid freezing cold for days. The winter storm and power outage have left at least 30 dead.
As public anger and questioning grew, five out-of-state ERCOT board members resigned on Wednesday.
Also on Wednesday, Bill Magness, ERCOT CEO, said that the grid was minutes away from a complete failure overnight on Feb 15. He outlined the magnitude of last week's crisis during a presentation to ERCOT's board of directors in which he gave a timeline of what went wrong.