Texas PUC chief says April 17 blackouts unlikely to be repeated

Texas PUC chief says April 17 blackouts unlikely to be repeated

Philadelphia (Platts)--25Apr2006

Texas Public Utility Commission Chairman Paul Hudson told a state
legislative committee Tuesday that rolling blackouts the Electric Reliability
Council of Texas was forced to invoke on April 17 were the result of "unusual"
circumstances that are very unlikely to be repeated.

Hudson also told the Texas Senate Business and Commerce Committee,
however, that the PUC and ERCOT should take several steps to ensure that
sufficient generating capacity is available to meet occasional spikes in
spring and fall demand, when several thousand megawatts of capacity are
typically offline for maintenance.

Among other things, he called for a "reexamination of the forecasting
model" ERCOT used in advance of the April 17 power crisis, when demand spiked
to an all-time record level for April, and when ERCOT was forced to cut 1,150
MW of interruptible load and order utilities to cut 1,000 MW of firm demand.

"By the time we get to this summer, 77,000 MW will be ready to operate,"
Hudson said, adding that ERCOT's summer demand is expected to peak at about
60,000 MW. "I don't personally foresee...a significant risk of this same
issue" of rolling blackouts arising again, he said.

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