ERCOT Paid Companies To Shut Off Power In February, Study Finds

DALLAS, TX — According to 100-page report issued yesterday by University of Texas researchers, some 67 gas companies were paid to shut off power during the February deep freeze.

Most were natural gas suppliers and included some that provided critical fuel to power plants across the state. The report concluded that it was a systemic series of failures that caused "a loss of power for more than 4.5 million homes," according to the report issued Tuesday. "This failure has resulted in at least 57 deaths across 25 Texas counties and over $195 billion in property damage."

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Some 67 pipeline infrastructure locations and gas refining sites were permitted to participate in a voluntary program dedicated to emergency repose program managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, known better as ERCOT, the report said.

ERCOT maintains the state's power grid, and, in exchange for the payments, had permission to cut off their power in case of emergency.

And those 67 locations receiving payouts from ERCOT? Of those, five "identified themselves later to the electric utility as critical natural gas infrastructure," the report said.

While the details are a maze, what does emerge is a picture of falling dominoes. Since most Texas power plants rely on natural gas for their fuel, the plants shut down because they had no fuel to run.

In addition, researchers found that some generation units providing power tripped offline after reaching temperatures they were designed to withstand.

Joshua Rhodes, who worked on the report, called the plan for natural gas facilities to shut down in an emergency "counterintuitive."

ERCOT's media office commented on the report's findings, and researchers said the state did not provide the names of the 67 companies, their locations — or how much they were paid to shut down.

"ERCOT spends approximately $50 million annually on Emergency Response Service, or ERS," the media office explained in an email to Patch.

"ERS customers include entities such as big box stores and warehouses," they explained. "They need to be able to shut off their power if we ask them to during an emergency. Following the February winter storm, ERCOT proposed a market rule that would prohibit entities who power critical infrastructure from bidding in to provide this service. (NPRR 1087)"

They added, "We cannot provide a list of the participants since we do not coordinate with them directly. We coordinate with the Qualified Scheduled Entities, or QSEs, who provide dispatch instructions to the entities. "

How much could have been paid out? ERCOT has a compensation cap of $50 million per year.

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