Electricity

Texas adopts electricity supply chain map

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Herald Banner

Ali Linan

AUSTIN — The Texas Electricity Supply Chain Security and Mapping Committee adopted the state’s first-ever Electricity Supply Chain Map of critical infrastructure, the committee announced Friday.
The map comes as a directive from the state legislature following the deadly and costly 2021 winter storm where a near collapse of the state’s electric grid left millions without water and electricity for days amid freezing temperatures.
“This map will save lives in Texas,” said Thomas Gleeson, Public Utility Commission of Texas executive director and chairman of the mapping committee. “Our agencies have collected an enormous amount of critical information in one place, available to state emergency officials with a click of a mouse. That means better coordinated preparedness before a disaster and faster response times in an emergency, to protect the Texas grid.”
The map identifies critical infrastructure facilities that make up …
Electricity

Appeals court hears arguments on legality of $9,000 electricity rates during Texas winter storm

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Dallas Business Journal

By Mark Curriden – The Texas Lawbook

This story is available as part of a content partnership with The Texas Lawbook. For the latest legal services news, visit TexasLawbook.net.

The Texas Public Utility Commission’s February 2021 emergency rules allowing an increase in electric rates to $9,000 per megawatt hour in response to Winter Storm Uri were “invalid and ineffective” and “wreaked havoc” on the state’s power system, lawyers representing several large energy companies told a Texas appeals court Wednesday.

Lawyers for Dallas-based Luminant Energy asked a three-judge panel of the Texas Third Court of Appeals in Austin to declare that the PUC illegally adopted two pricing rules during the historic storm that allowed the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to increase the emergency price of electricity 650 percent for five days.

In response, the PUC argued that the energy companies suing the agency are …