Four ERCOT members resign after Texas power outage

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Four board members of the Texas Electric Reliability Council, the entity that manages and operates the power grid that covers much of Texas, will resign Wednesday, according to a statement to the Public Utility Commission.

Sally Talberg, chair of the board; Peter Cramton, vice president; Terry Bulger, president of finance and auditing; and Raymond Hepper, chairman of the human resources and governance committee, will resign at the end of the ERCOT board meeting Wednesday morning, according to the notice. All four live out of state.

Craig Ivey, who also lives outside of Texas, had planned to fill a vacancy but withdrew his application, according to the notice.

ERCOT board members had been set on fire last week when it was reported that some of the board members did not reside in the state. ERCOT officials, during a press conference last week, said they had removed personal information about executives from their website because board members were being harassed.

The board has also been criticized for its treatment of last week’s massive power outage during a winter storm that has claimed the lives of dozens of jeans. More than 4.5 million customers were without electricity at some point last week.

Governor Greg Abbott called on ERCOT board members to resign after the crisis and said in a statement on Tuesday that he welcomed his resignations and pledged to investigate the network operator.

“I accept the resignations,” Abbott said. “The lack of preparation and transparency in ERCOT is unacceptable. We will make sure that the disastrous events of last week are never repeated. “

Talberg, a former state utility regulator who served on the Michigan Public Utility Commission from 2013 to 2020, lives in Michigan. Talberg has been a member of several state, regional and national committees and committees related to electricity, natural gas, oil, infrastructure and telecommunications. Cramton, a professor of economics at the University of Cologne and the University of Maryland, lives in Germany. Cramton has focused his research on financial and electrical markets. He has advised numerous governments and has been a member of the ERCOT board since 2015.

Bulger worked in the banking industry for 35 years, including various positions at ABN AMRO Bank in Canada, Europe and the United States, and lives in Wheaton, Illinois. Hepper, a former U.S. Department of Justice litigant, retired in 2018 from working for the grid operator that manages New England’s power system and six-state wholesale markets.

Ivey, whose appointment was approved by ERCOT members but was pending final approval from the PUC, is retired from more than three decades of experience in the utilities industry. He resides in Florida, according to an ERCC announcement about his candidacy for the board. Most recently, he was the president of Consolidated Edison Co. of New York Inc., a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison Inc.

ERCOT representatives did not return calls seeking comment, but a statement said, “We look forward to working with the Texas legislature and thank the board members for the service.”

Fifteen directors are members of the ERCC board, including the four non-affiliated directors, whose resignations will take effect at the end of the meeting on Wednesday. Vacancies will not be filled immediately.

In order for ERCOT to maintain its certification as an independent organization, the board, which should consist of 16 members, must include five that are not fully affiliated with “any market segment”. Ivey would have been the fifth unaffiliated member.

“The chairman of the board of directors, the vice-chairman of the board of directors and the leadership roles of the two committees will remain vacant,” according to the notice presented by the lawyers representing ERCOT.