Four ERCOT members resign after power outage in Texas

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Four board members of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the agency that manages and manages the electricity network that covers much of Texas, will resign Wednesday, according to a notice to the Public Utility Commission.

Sally Talberg, Chairman of the Board; Peter Cramton, vice chairman; Terry Bulger, financial and audit chairman; and Raymond Hepper, chairman of human resources and management committee, will resign at the end of the ERCOT board meeting on Wednesday morning, according to the announcement. All four of them live outside the state.

Craig Ivey, who also lives outside Texas, would fill a vacancy, but the notice withdrew his application.

ERCOT councilors came under fire last week when it was reported that some of the councilors did not reside in the state. ERCOT officials said during a press conference last week that they had removed personal information about the directors of the website because the board members were experiencing harassment.

The board was also criticized for dealing with the mass power outage last week during a winter storm that claimed the lives of dozens of Texans. More than 4.5 million customers were without power at one stage last week.

Talberg, a former state utility regulator who served on the Michigan Public Utility Commission from 2013 to 2020, lives in Michigan. Talberg has served on various state, regional and national boards and committees that have addressed 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 focused his research on electricity and financial markets. He has advised numerous governments and has been on the ERCOT Council since 2015.

Bulger has worked in the banking sector for 35 years, including various positions at ABN AMRO Bank in Canada, Europe and the US, and resides in Wheaton, Illinois. Hepper, a former litigator for the U.S. Department of Justice, retired in 2018 to work for the network operator that manages the electricity system and wholesale markets in New England.

Ivey, whose appointment was approved by members of ERCOT but pending the final approval of the PUC, has retired from more than three decades of experience in the utility industry. According to an ERCOT announcement about his candidacy for the board, he lives in Florida. 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 for comment, but said in a statement: “We look forward to working with the legislature in Texas, and we thank the outgoing board members for their service.”

Fifteen directors serve on the ERCOT board, including the four non-affiliated directors, whose resignation will take effect at the end of the meeting on Wednesday. The vacancies will not be filled immediately.

In order for ERCOT to retain its certification as an independent organization, the board, which should consist of 16 members, must include five that are completely unrelated to ‘any market segment’. Ivey would have been the fifth member without membership.

“The chairman of the board, vice-chairman of the board and both the leadership roles of the committee chairman will be vacant,” according to the notice submitted by advocates of ERCOT.