PUC looks into Oncor’s role in electricity price spike

Dallas Morning News by James Osborne

The Texas Public Utility Commission is investigating a spike in electricity prices last month to see whether bad data from the transmission line company Oncor played a role.
According to a report earlier this month by a group of power companies and regulators, on May 18 wholesale power prices rose unexpectedly when data provided by Oncor showed a transmission line in West Texas was nearing capacity. Only the company had failed to update their data to show a recent upgrade to the line. Over six hours, the error resulted in $4.8 million in…

Texas passes bill giving PUC wind transmission oversight; bill to end RPS dies

Platts

A Texas bill to give the state Public Utility Commission oversight of transmission projects designed to export wind power from or into the Electric Reliability Council of Texas region is headed to the governor’s desk after being approved by the state’s House of Representatives.
However, a Senate-passed bill that would have eliminated the state’s renewable portfolio standard and forbidden the PUC from either establishing new “competitive renewable energy zones” or approving new CREZ transmission lines was derailed by the…