House Passes Bill Boosting ERCOT’s Regulatory Authority

A proposed bill to protect the Texas power grid against outages is on its way back to the state Senate after the House passed it on Tuesday. Senate Bill 6 would grant the Electric Reliability Council of Texas increased oversight of electric generation and transmission.

The bill would allow ERCOT to cut power to major electricity consumers during an emergency. The ideas is to encourage data centers and other power-intensive operations to develop in-house backup systems. The Senate will review the lower chamber’s amendments to the bill.