The head of ERCOT has begun a series of "listening sessions" in North Texas as he tries to restore confidence in the management of the state's electric grid. Brad Jones was named interim president and chief executive officer of ERCOT in May, replacing Bill Magness, who was fired in May after rolling blackouts during record cold in February.
Jones met with members of the public Monday evening at Coppell Town Center.
"I lived in Minnesota for six winters," one man said. "You know what? It got 25 and 30 below zero there. We never had any problems."
Jones said power plants and ERCOT were not prepared for record cold covering such a large part of the state.
"The last time an event like this occurred was, I believe, in 1895 that it was this cold across all of Texas, north to south, east to west," Jones said.
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He says ERCOT has made improvements, and Texas needs to be prepared with a backup plan. Jones says too many power plants were knocked off-line.
He says ERCOT and power plants have made improvements since February, but he says he cannot guarantee rolling blackouts will be prevented in the case of record cold in the future.
"I will not say there is not a possibility there are some outages and that we will manage those outages in a much better way than we did this last time around," Jones says.
Listening sessions continue Tuesday with a presentation at a Carrollton City Council work session. The city council meeting begins at 5:45 at:
1945 E Jackson Rd
Carrollton, TX 75006
The final session is a virtual event scheduled November 17 with the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce.
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