PUC: No more blackouts expected

We shouldn't see any more rolling blackouts heading into the summer, the Public Utility Commission told a state Senate panel yesterday, but PUC Chairman Paul Hudson said the Electric Reliability Council of Texas needs to communicate better with officials and the public in the future.

The Senate hearing was prompted by last week's blackouts, which were caused by a spike in electric demand as temperatures across the state climbed into the 90s and 100s. Up to 15 percent of Texas' generating power was offline for regular maintenance, and the spike in use caused five power generators to shut down within a half-hour. To help prevent more unexpected shutdowns, ERCOT ordered the blackouts — the state's first since 1989 — but ERCOT COO Sam Jones said that was a rare event.

"We experienced what I consider to be an extremely unlikely event," he said. "It was truly the straw that broke the camel's back."

But both he and Hudson insisted that Texas has plenty of power when all of its suppliers are online and said blackouts shouldn't be a problem this summer.

"You can never 100 percent rule out something like that because they are mechanical systems," Jones said. "But it (is) very unlikely that we would see another event like that going into May."

Senators praised ERCOT for its quick action last week, but criticized the agency for failing to warn officials that the blackouts were coming. "You can't be out there cowboying, operating on your own," Sen. Troy Frasier, chairman of the Senate Business and Commerce Committee, said. "We want to offer you helop, but we can't offer help if we don't know about it."