Advocacy

The House State Affairs Committee met Thursday January 30th, 2020, to discuss updates on the power system in Texas, power reserves, resource adequacy, distributed energy resources, electric vehicles, and price transparency. Michele Richmond, Executive Director for the Texas Competitive Power Advocates (TCPA), testified that her organization represents power generators and wholesale power marketers. Michele said that thermal power generators encompass 70% of generating capacity in ERCOT. She testified that high prices occur in high demand times when resources are low which is how the ERCOT market is designed to work. In Texas, generators are paid to generate power and are not paid for available capacity. Michele spoke about thermal generators having lower outages than ERCOT expected this summer as well as the reliable nature of her members’ resources, which can ramp up and down as instructed based on system needs. Michele mentioned that TCPA generators invest hundreds of millions of dollars into ERCOT and the importance of dispatchable generation. Most of TCPA’s members are investing the existing fleet and in spring maintenance to be able to produce at maximum capacity. She asked for continued support of the competitive market without subsidies or interference in market principles.