The Electric Reliability Council of Texas command center in Taylor on Aug. 14, 2012. ERCOT, which operates the state power grid, was approved for a 40% budget increase on Thursday., The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas needs more money to comply with new regulations, hire more employees and fight legal challenges, its lawyers wrote in state filings. ERCOT planned to grow its 843-person staff by 171 positions, adding attorneys, system operators and communications experts. In an October budget meeting with PUC staff, Michael McMillin, a lawyer representing Texas Industrial Energy Consumers, and Cyrus Reed, conservation director for the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, questioned why millions of dollars were going toward ERCOT’s general counsel’s office.
The ERCOT grid serves a majority of the state and is largely separated from the interconnected grids that serve the eastern and western halves of the United States.