Gov. Greg Abbott is calling for an investigation into the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, due to statewide outages that have caused millions of Texans to lose power amid frigid temperatures.
ERCOT operates the state's electric grid and manages about 90% of the state's electric load. The nonprofit is governed by a board of directors, and it is subject to oversight by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas Legislature.
As of 1:20 p.m., over 4 million customers were out of power, according to ERCOT, which tracks about 12.5 million customers.
On Feb. 16, Abbott declared the reform of ERCOT an emergency item this legislative session, which means the Legislature must investigate the entity to "ensure Texans never again experience power outages on the scale they have seen over the past several days," according to a news release from Abbott's office.
