Members of Texas power grid operator's board to resign in wake of massive power outage during winter storm

(GNB Desk): Five members of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) Board of Directors, including the chair, resigned from their positions Tuesday, effective at the conclusion of Wednesday’s board meeting, according to a notice filed with the Public Utility Commission of Texas.

ERCOT maintains and operates much of the state’s electricity grid.

In a letter to the board, the resigning members cited concerns about their “out-of-state board leadership.” Three of the resigning board members live in other states, and one lives in another country.

“We have noted recent concerns about out-of-state board leadership at ERCOT,” the letter said. “To allow state leaders a free hand with future direction and to eliminate distractions, we are resigning from the board effective after our urgent board teleconference meeting adjourns on Wednesday, February 24, 2021.”

The resigning members also said they wanted to “acknowledge the pain and suffering of Texans during this past week” and noted that many Texans are still facing “the tragic consequences of this emergency.”

The four board directors resigning are Sally Talberg, the board chairwoman and a former state utility regulator who lives in Michigan; Peter Cramton, the board’s vice chairman and an economics professor at the University of Cologne in Germany and at the University of Maryland; Terry Bulger, the Finance and Audit Committee Chairman and a banker from Illinois; and Raymond Hepper, the Human Resources and Governance Committee Chairman and a former regulator for New England’s power grid.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he welcomed the resignations.

“When Texans were in desperate need of electricity, ERCOT failed to do its job and Texans were left shivering in their homes without power,” Abbott said in a statement. “ERCOT leadership made assurances that Texas’ power infrastructure was prepared for the winter storm, but those assurances proved to be devastatingly false.”