Berkshire Hathaway Certifies Compressors – No Methane Left Behind marcellusdrilling.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from marcellusdrilling.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Texas House takes modest steps to avoid another winter blackout with weatherization and communication
Texas House takes modest steps to avoid another winter blackout with weatherization and communication
The bills advanced Sunday would revamp management of the state’s main electric grid and tackle weatherization and emergency communication.
The Texas House on Sunday advanced two bills that would take modest steps to prevent a repeat of the state s winter blackouts, by revamping the management of the electric grid and tackling weatherization and emergency communication. Feb. 15 file photo shows snow-covered Arboretum Village near White Rock Lake in Dallas.(Lola Gomez / Staff Photographer)
Fotolia
In efforts to prevent a repeat of the February disaster that left millions without electricity, Texas policymakers continue to disagree over the cause and appropriate mitigation efforts. The blackouts from the storm led to spikes in power prices and the deaths of at least 151 people.
Republican leadership was quick to criticize renewables for the role they played in the blackouts, with Gov. Greg Abbott, R, claiming on national television that renewables caused the outages. They cannot be dispatched by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and therefore cannot be relied upon, said state Sen. Kelly Hancock, R, who chairs the Senate Business and Commerce committee. Hancock sponsored Senate Bill (SB) 1278, which would impose reliability costs on intermittent generation.
/ Lisa Chumley of Dallas received a bill of over $11,000 from Griddy for less of a week of electricity during the winter storm.
Time is running out on a slate of other bills lawmakers are considering that stem from February s deadly winter storm.
With just over two weeks remaining in the legislative session, the governor’s office is getting the first key bill that Texas House and Senate lawmakers have passed in response to February’s widespread power outages.
House Bill 16, which got final approval from the House on Wednesday, would not allow residential or small-business electricity customers in Texas to sign up for electricity plans where wholesale prices for power are passed to customers. Those plans include the kind that caused February power bills to skyrocket for several customers of Griddy Energy and other companies. Some customers reported bills over $15,000.