Texas’ big payoff: How a competitive market made the state a runaway leader in electricity

Over the past several decades, the Texas economy has been among the strongest performers in the world.

Deregulating the electricity market — and letting consumers and businesses shop for the best deals — fit right into Texas’ brand.

In the early years of dereg, leaders took reliability for granted and focused on attracting more generation and stoking competition in the retail market.

Power plants and natural gas suppliers were not hardened for such frigid conditions, and when they froze up, there were massive outages on ERCOT, the grid serving most of the state.

Texas’ abundant, cheap power also has been effective in attracting manufacturing — no small feat when so many U.S.

The Texas market encouraged homeowners and renters to shop around, and retailers eventually offered dozens of consumer plans.

It took a while for prices to fall because the cost of natural gas, the dominant fuel in Texas electricity generation, was rising in the early years.

Texas’ dereg experiment wasn’t aimed at merely boosting generation and lowering prices, said Wood, who later became chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, known as FERC.

The state twice set minimum goals for renewables, and generators quickly blew past them.

The rapid growth in renewable energy has helped drive down the cost of electricity and reduce emissions.

Two-thirds of ERCOT outages stemmed from icing and freezing on just four types of power plant components, according to a November report from FERC.

Last year, Texas and California had power outages, and both are heavily invested in renewables, said Curt Morgan, CEO of Vistra Corp., the state’s largest power generator.

In Texas, “We were letting cost and economics get in front of reliability,” Morgan said at a May panel discussion in Austin.

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