Senate Business & Commerce met on June 12 to hear invited and public testimony on the following interim charges: Electricity Market Design, Transmitting Texas Power, and the Impact of Bitcoin Mining. Chair Charles Schwertner reiterated in opening comments how Texas Energy Fund has seen 125 notices of intent to apply for a loan; totaling $39b. The committee discussed their concern with the PUC’s proposed Performance Credit Mechanism (PCM) and whether it would be a necessary third revenue stream in the market at this time since the TEF and other grid reforms have been/will be put into place. The PUC’s Tom Gleeson and ERCOT’s Pablo Vegas testified to the committee concerning the PCM and its possible implementation. Chair Schwertner and Vegas discussed the PCM as an option, while the ERCOT Contingency Reserve Service (ECRS) has been implemented and was mandated by the legislature. The committee also heard from Zachary Ming, of E3, the company that has worked with the PUC and ERCOT to formulate the PCM. Committee members discussed the parameters used to create the PCM and Sen. Donna Campbell and Chair Schwertner particularly voiced their concern with how these parameters were chosen. Courtney Hjaltman from the Office of Public Utility Counsel testified to the ancillary service cost and the implementation of ECRS. A number of other testifiers spoke on this item.
Concerning bitcoin mining, the committee heard from Brian Morgenstern from Riot Platforms concerning how their operations impact the grid. The committee also heard from Woody Rickerson from ERCOT concerning the demand of crypto on the gird, which is about the same as the city of Austin currently. David Ball, American Electric Power. David Ball from American Electric Power was the list invited testifier. He spoke to crypto mining and data centers being large energy consumers and their concern about the large load they are associated with relative to other industries in the state. The committee heard public testimony on all three interim charges.
A HillCo report for this hearing can be found below.