Sure is a lot of misunderstanding out there about ERCOT's authority and responsibility. Also, in the context of the electric power industry, the word "reliability" does not mean what you think it means. For the most part, "reliability" does not mean making sure people have power.

Reliability of the Texas power system really has more to do with making sure that supply and demand are equally matched to the extent that supply exists. If supply and demand are too far out of sync, power system voltage and frequency get out of whack, which breaks equipment.

ERCOT doesn't really have a lot of authority over companies that generate electricity - certainly no authority to make them winterize equipment. They can order generators to stop generating. They can ask generators to generate more. Otherwise, all they can do is cut off load.

So, when a bunch of generators go offline for whatever reason, ERCOT doesn't have any choice but to cut load to match the remaining supply. That's what rolling blackouts are. ERCOT makes a best effort to be equitable about blackouts. It's hard.

Ice tends to do bad things to transmission lines as well, which means sometimes ERCOT has to cut off sections of transmission lines or do weird things like telling perfectly good generators to stop generating. You can't really route power - it goes where it wants.

So sometimes that means a good generator is located at the wrong end of a bad transmission line. If they don't tell the generator to stop running, the line will burn down. Literally melt. Under normal circumstances, they just ask some other generator to compensate.

But nobody - no person, agency, or entity has the responsibility or authority to make sure enough generators exist. Or wires. And nobody has authority or responsibility to require generators to operate if they don't want to. Or to winterize.

I say all this simply to point out that getting angry with ERCOT because generators didn't have insulation on their pipes makes as much sense as getting mad at the NYSE because some company had bad earnings and the stock dropped. Like, sure, they're involved, but can't fix it.

The situation I am describing - one in which nobody has the responsibility to meet demand - is a natural consequence of having a market-driven system. No matter how much you want a bottle of hot sauce, nobody has the authority to force someone to make hot sauce. Same applies here

If you want hot sauce bad enough, you can offer $10,000 for a bottle a week. Maybe that's enough incentive for someone to make sauce. Maybe not. That's free market for you.

- No entity or group has an obligation to ensure that enough generation capacity exists.
- No entity or group has an obligation to ensure that enough transmission capacity exists.

- No entity or group has an obligation to ensure any level of access to electric service exists in any location.
- No entity or group has an obligation to ensure that availability of electric service is equitable.

By the way - The reason I know all of this and feel moderately qualified to comment is that I worked for a good number of years doing various economic analysis work in wholesale power contracts in Texas. I also did a bit of work around the NERC-CIP cybersecurity rules.

I'm certainly not an expert in a lot of areas of the Texas power market, but I am pretty closely aware of the various regulatory frameworks around power generation, transmission, and distribution. Also, I verified with an actual expert with around 40 years exp. in Texas power.