Texas Was Warned of $12 Billion Cost of Grid Reliability Policy

Officials in Texas were repeatedly warned that the new Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) rules about backup power capacity from last summer would be expensive and could drive up electricity prices, a Bloomberg investigation of documents obtained via open records requests showed.   Ahead of the summer peak demand in 2023, ERCOT launched the Ercot Contingency Reserve Service (ECRS) policy to ensure grid stability.  However, reserve capacity from cheap natural gas-fired power plants sat idle due to the policy, while…