How ready are we for this
winter's weather? I work very
ready. We have spent the last 12
months making sure that all of of
the generators are ready to operate.
Working with our transmission
distribution providers and also making
sure that all of the communicators
across the state are ready to
to communicate well to each of our customers.
You talk about some of the
improvements that have been made.
Yes, the cornerstone, the real, the real
foundation to this change
has been making sure that our generators
in the state are prepared for the winter.
They've improved their weatherization
nature that they had more insulation
on their equipment, and we've
gone out and inspected them to
make sure they've done that.
On top of that, the legislature gave us
the ability through the public
utility Commission to levy
penalties up to $1,000,000 per day
per occurrence if they fail to do so.
The generators have also
done a fantastic job.
They began working on their their units
well before the winter in late summer.
They began ordering equipment and taking
outages to make sure that they had
their units available and ready for us,
and when we complete our inspections,
the vast majority of them
completed without concerns.
You know, I actually don't
have a lot of concerns right
now about the generators,
but I have a whole lot of concerns
about the natural gas industry.
Do you have concerns?
I always am concerned
about the fuel integrity.
Making sure that we can get
fuel to our generation plants.
One of the things that the Commission is
working on and we've been working with him,
is setting up a on site fuel
requirement for some of our generators.
That on site fuel requirement would
give our generators an alternative
if natural gas fails to operate,
they'd be able to operate
off these alternate fuels,
so we look forward to that.
Being able to set up that
structure in our market.
You know you saw the recent fight
between Entergy and Vista or Luminant
whatever you want to call him.
I mean, you know what concerned me there
was you have a situation where in that case,
luminance two of their power plants were
completely reliant upon energy transfer.
Should there be something changed
to add additional regulation
to ensure that power plants?
Aren't cut off by natural gas
entities over a price dispute.
We continue to work through what's
called the Texas Energy Reliability
Commission Council and the torque.
The major function is to improve
that communications through natural
gas and the electric industry,
and I believe will be able to
resolve these issues there,
and it does concern me, yes,
but I think we have the
forum for resolving them.
What do you think about that
recent sudden drop in natural gas
production? Back on January 2nd?
If that number is correct and I
don't know if it is but Bloomberg
reported a 20% drop in production
in West TX and it does concern me,
it shows that we still need more
work to be done on the weatherization
of our natural gas fleet.
But I do know that many of those
gas suppliers have been working
on improving their weatherization
and the railroad Commission will
be putting in place rules for next
winter for that weatherization
requirement on those gas facilities.
But that doesn't solve it for this winter.
It doesn't solve it for this winter,
but there is one thing the
railroad Commission has done.
In order to make sure that the gas
facilities were getting power.
During one of these winter storms
they have required that most of gas
suppliers actually get on a critical
infrastructure list with their
transmission and distribution provider,
meaning that they won't be rotated if
there is an outage in the system and that
will allow us to keep more
of those facilities online.
So after the session,
Governor Abbott had tweeted that
that you know the legislation that he
signed had had fixed the situation.
Is that do you agree with that?
Or I've I believe that the legislation
did an incredible job of really focusing
in on what the most important areas were.
As I said, just a moment ago the the
ability of Irkut to inspect generators
and then to work through the public
utility Commission to levy fines.
If those generators fail those
inspections is something that was
given to us by the legislature.
We never had that before,
and so there are several $1,000,000
fines that are out there that have
been out there for some time and.
Several million more that are coming
very soon for generators that
failed to meet our expectations,
and I still think I guess the biggest
concern that all of us have and
there's someone who lost power for
2 1/2 days and it was very cold.
Is, you know, just again,
this lag time with natural gas
being required to be winterized.
How much of a concern is that for you?
It remains a concern,
but as I said, a lot of work has
been done on the gas side as well.
More is to be done and I
and we all realize that,
but a lot of work has been done.
I think one thing that that is
overlooked is that a lot of the gas
suppliers have done weatherization
on their own facilities in
advance of any regulations.
So they've begun preparing themselves.
But I do want to see the railroad
Commission move forward with
those weatherization standards.
And I do want to see their inspection
process start just as the public
utility Commission has already done.