Bill Magness, CEO of ERCOT, will be replaced in the wake of power outages in Texas

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The board of directors that oversees the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the independent nonprofit that operates and manages the power grid that spans much of Texas, fired Bill Magness, CEO of ERCOT, Wednesday night.

The board’s decision to vote for a “60-day notice” came after meeting more than three hours in a closed board meeting. The board barely discussed his decision when he returned to the public session.

The decision is the latest of several recently announced departures from the ERCOT council, which also included Magness. Seven board members resigned after public criticism that many board members did not live in Texas.

Due to the absence of Magness, the 16-member ERCOT board is left with a mix of vacancies and temporary members. Both ERCOT and the Texas Public Utilities Commission, the regulatory body that oversees it, have been criticized in recent weeks for failures in preparation for and response to the winter storm that left millions in the dark for days and left dozens of lives. .

On Monday, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick had called on both Magness and the chairman of the PUC to resign. DeAnn Walker, the former chairman of the PUC, resigned that same day. She had come under severe criticism from lawmakers after blaming ERCOT largely for the power cuts in Texas, the entity that controls her agency. Gov. Greg Abbott has named Walker’s replacement on Wednesday.

Magness, who was questioned by state senators for more than five hours on Thursday, was criticized for the organization’s preparations for a winter storm. ERCOT underestimated the maximum amount of power that would be required by homes, businesses and industry during a severe winter storm in its fall projections, and it overestimated the amount of power generation that would be available to the grid during such a storm.

When massive amounts of power went offline in the early hours of February 15, far more than expected, ERCOT grid operators were forced to order utilities to initiate controlled outages to prevent the entire system from collapsing. Lawmakers complained that the grid operator was not doing enough to warn state leaders or the public of the coming disaster.

In his testimony last week, Magness defended the way ERCOT handled the power outages and told lawmakers that if ERCOT operators had not acted as they did, “the suffering we saw last week would get worse” and Texans probably without power for weeks. would sit. Magness also defended ERCOT as an entity that carries out what the legislators and the PUC direct.

“The committee approves the policy, we implement it,” said Magness.

Magness told lawmakers he earns $ 803,000 annually, which he said comes from Texans paying their electricity bills.

Magness was not talking about the board’s decision, just that he abstained because it concerned himself. Magness also said he was not present for any relevant discussion in the private executive session.

Walker, who testified after Magness at the hearings with lawmakers, said she disagreed with his characterization of how much oversight the PUC had over ERCOT, saying the commission “has not been given legal power from the legislature to demand winter weathering. “, a primary concern after the power crisis was triggered by power plants going offline. Many power generators are not built to withstand extreme cold weather temperatures in Texas.

Magness worked at ERCOT for more than a decade and became CEO and President in 2016 after serving as general counsel. Previously, he held executive management positions in the public and private utility sectors. As an attorney, he also previously served as a lead counsel on state and federal regulatory issues.