Houston Chronicle by Chris Tomlinson 2/19/2021
Tomlinson: Texas electric grid is an easy fix, if lawmakers will admit their error
Most people know the lowest bidder does not always provide the most reliable product.
Making sure a vendor can actually deliver the product also seems like common sense.
ERCOT, the Texas electric grid manager, though, does neither of those things because Republican politicians who have controlled state regulations for two decades have failed to heed 13 years of dire warnings.
Instead, they believed free-market advocates who argued financial incentives would encourage responsible planning.
The Texas Blackouts prove them wrong. Now our political leaders are giving us misleading scapegoating, political gamesmanship and another front in the culture wars.
Texas has the only American electricity grid with no rules for resiliency. Instead, the GOP majority argued that a system that pays higher prices when demand goes up would incentivize generators to make sure their systems work during extreme weather.
More:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article/Texas-electric-grid-is-easy-to-fix-if-lawmakers-15961368.php