Abbott orders fuel producers to sell to in-state power generators amid no timeline for end of outages
AUSTIN, Texas — As millions of Texans continue to struggle with power outages during a massive winter storm, Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday ordered Texas natural gas producers to sell the fuel to in-state power generators in an effort to restore electricity.
There were three million Texas households and businesses still without power as of Wednesday afternoon, and neither governor nor the power grid manager had any firm estimates for when power would be restored for Texans - many of whom have been without electricity in frigid temperatures since early Monday.
The state’s power grid is run by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which is "an independent private agency," Abbott said. "It is kind of opaque. The way that it runs is not transparent."
ERCOT President Bill Magness said he’s hopeful many customers would see electricity at least partially restored — on a rotating basis, with outages coming in and out — by later Wednesday or Thursday.
Rising temperatures over the coming days will speed the restoration process in two ways: demand will go down because customers will use less energy, and energy supply that’s affected by frozen equipment or icy roads will go up, he said.
Magness defended ERCOT’s move early Monday to force outages to prevent an even larger blackout.
“The operators acted quickly... based on their training to prevent an event that would have been even more catastrophic than the terrible events we’ve seen this week,” Magness said.
