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Harris County is expected to consider quitting the state’s main power grid after failing to prevent widespread blackouts for more than half of Houston-area residents last week, the District 2 commissioner said Monday, Adrian Garcia.
Garcia has asked the Court of Commissioners to explore what authority it has to sever ties with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which oversees the grid that supplies power to the entire state except El Paso, in parts. of the Panhandle and a group of counties in East Texas. .
“This agenda item aims to explore how we in Harris County can take charge of the safety of residents, which the state has clearly shown it cannot be trusted. Garcia said in a statement.
Garcia, a Democrat who represents eastern Harris County, said the state had failed to adequately protect its power infrastructure after widespread outages in 2011 that exposed vulnerabilities to winter weather conditions.
He suggested the county could join the East Texas Grid, the Midcontinental’s independent system operator, which, unlike ERCOT, crosses state borders and is overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Liberty County, which borders Harris County to the east, is part of MISO. This network also suffered outages during the storm, when demand for electricity exceeded supply, but they were less severe than those of the ERCOT system.
Harris County’s ability, if any, to leave ERCOT is unclear. First Deputy County Attorney Jay Aiyer said such a move would almost certainly require legislative approval. As subdivisions of state government, commissioner tribunals have little independent power; they can’t even issue ordinances.
Aiyer said Harris County will also consider what actions, if any, the legislature takes this session to reform ERCOT or the Public Utility Commission to avoid future blackouts.
CenterPoint Energy, which supplies electricity to the Houston area, declined to comment on Garcia’s proposal.
On Friday, the Commissioners Court will take over Garcia’s proposal.
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