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The manager of the Texas electric grid said Wednesday that it should not be forced to fix a data error that increased electricity costs by millions of dollars and reprice a block of wholesale power sales because generators submit erroneous data so frequently it would have to adjust prices as often as once a day.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas made its comments in response to a complaint filed with the Public Utility Commission by the electricity trader Aspire Commodities in Houston. Aspire asked regulators to require generators to repay a windfall of an estimated $18 million, the result of inaccurate production data sent to ERCOT by the …

The Houston merchant power company Calpine has claimed responsibility for a data error that sent wholesale power prices spiking at the end of May and, according to an estimate from a commodity trading firm in Houston, cost consumers, industrial customers, power traders and retail electric providers more than $18 million.

The error likely added millions more in costs by pushing up the price of summer futures contracts for electricity, according to the electricity trading firm Aspire Commodities of Houston. Companies buy futures contracts to …