Texas ERCOT Power Grid, Trump, QAnon & Mexico. What a strange world Texas lives in.

[TheBlackAdder]

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Texas' secessionist inclinations have at least one modern outlet: the electric grid. There are three grids in the Lower 48 states: the Eastern Interconnection, the Western Interconnection — and Texas.

The Texas grid is called ERCOT, and it is run by an agency of the same name — the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. ERCOT does not actually cover all of Texas. El Paso is on another grid, as is the upper Panhandle and a chunk of East Texas. This presumably has to do with the history of various utilities' service territories and the remoteness of the non-ERCOT locations (for example the Panhandle is closer to Kansas than to Dallas, notes Kenneth Starcher of the Alternative Energy Institute in Canyon), but Texplainer is still figuring out the particulars on this.
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Historically, the Texas grid's independence has been violated a few times. Once was during World War II, when special provisions were made to link Texas to other grids, according to Cudahy. Another episode occurred in 1976 after a Texas utility, for reasons relating to its own regulatory needs, deliberately flipped a switch and sent power to Oklahoma for a few hours. This event, known as the "Midnight Connection," set off a major legal battle that could have brought Texas under the jurisdiction of federal regulators, but it was ultimately resolved in favor of continued Texan independence.

Even today, ERCOT is also not completely isolated from other grids — as was evident when the state imported some power from Mexico during the rolling blackouts of 2011. ERCOT has three ties to Mexico and — as an outcome of the "Midnight Connection" battle — it also has two ties to the eastern U.S. grid, though they do not trigger federal regulation for ERCOT. All can move power commercially as well as be used in emergencies, according to ERCOT spokeswoman Dottie Roark. A possible sixth interconnection project, in Rusk County, is being studied, and another ambitious proposal, called Tres Amigas, would link the three big U.S. grids together in New Mexico, though Texas' top utility regulator has shown little enthusiasm for participating.

Bottom line: Texas has its own grid to avoid dealing with the feds.

https://www.rawstory.com/texas-power-outage/

But electricity from Mexico is A-OK. Yes, the Build-The-Wall Mexico.

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[RandySF]

1. A strong argument to bring Texas into the 21st Century.

[LeftInTX]

2. Mexico can't regulate Texas. Texas just buys power from them.

Texas probably pays them pretty good, but right now there isn't enough Mexican energy because they got hit with the same weather and need the electricity over there.

The rolling blackouts weren't bad in 2011, but this is 1,000,0000 times worse!!! We had like 3 or 4 rolling blackouts, but that was it. They lasted no more than 30-45 minutes each. They occurred mostly in the morning and they were done by 3 pm in the afternoon.

[Deuxcents]

3. Do the customers have any say?

Do they have any representation?

[dalton99a]

4. I suppose it's too cold and icy for Texas patriots to protest at the Texas Capitol