The Texas utility manager turned down calls Friday to fix $ 16 billion in overloads that occurred amid power outages caused by last month’s winter storm.
Arthur D’Andrea, chairman of the Texas Public Utilities Commission, suggested Friday during a committee meeting that the mistake would be too difficult to fix, the American-Statesman of Austin reported.
“It’s almost impossible to develop that kind of egg,” he said, according to the newspaper.
Andrea added that any action designed to help customers can have unintended consequences due to out-of-sight private transactions, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“You think you’re protecting the consumer and it turns out you’re bankrupt of a cooperative or a city,” D’Andrea said.
The comments come after third-party market supervision Potomac Economics, which hired the state, he concluded that the Texas Electric Reliability Council (ERCOT) overcharged $ 16 billion in electricity during the winter storm.
During the storm, ERCOT implemented controlled blackouts across the state to prevent damage to the power grid. ERCOT CEO Bill Magness he told The Texas Tribune last month that the decision was made to prevent the network from going down.
ERCOT set prices at a limit of $ 9,000 per megawatt hour during shutdowns. However, the monitor said prices should have been reset after the controlled blackouts were completed.
Texas is still facing the aftermath of the winter storm that caused dozens of deaths, and since then, ERCC’s management of the situation has come under intense scrutiny.