The Senate Committee on Nominations met on August 11 to hear from Commissioner Jimmy Glotfelty, recent appointee to the Public Utility Commission of Texas, and to vote on the entire nominations list found here.
This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics taken up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the discussions but is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.
Opening Comments
- Campbell – Hearing from newly appointed PUC Commissioner Jimmy Glotfelty, former Director of Government Solutions for Quanta Services, former Founder and Executive Vice President for Clean Line Energy Partners, and the former Managing Director for ICF Consulting
- Glotfelty is a former member of White House task force to streamline energy permitting
Jimmy Glotfelty, Public Utility Commission
- Sworn in yesterday, commits to meeting all members not yet met
- 30 years experience, comes from a diverse energy background; hoping to create a stable system that will drive investment in the power system and other industries
- Hopefully Winter Storm Uri will not be repeated, commends legislators on efforts & committed to work with them on additional measures to improve markets
- Expertise is a little less deep on telecommunications and water, but previously tried to set up a competing telecommunications company
- Campbell – Can you share what a short-term plan and long-term plan for energy would look like
- Need short-term (12 mos.), medium-term (12-36 mos.), and long-term solutions (10+ years)
- Highlights tech like small modular reactors
- Need to look at natural gas fired power plants in the short-term, whether peaker or cycle plants; peakers could be delivered on flatbeds in emergency situations
- Storage should be another focus, the “holy grail” of energy & battery storage is becoming real; spread throughout the world, largest facility in Australia has provided amazing grid support beyond expectations
- Campbell – With the battery storage in Australia, who paid for that?
- Not sure if it was grid operator or the utility; there was a fire at one of the batteries the other day
- Huge facility that we’re learning a lot from
- Paxton – With the growing population, increased generation is an important goal; one of the things highlighted during the winter storm was the mix of renewables as far as their reliability, or lack of reliability; thoughts on increasing reliable generation?
- Renewable generation is only as reliable as its source; highlights wind project he was involved in
- Natural gas-fired plants are easy to build, all across the state, can permit them easily, and important to the energy mix
- Paxton – Winter Storm highlighted the incentive structure that didn’t reflect dependability
- Bills passed as a result of the storm were the right bills to pass, weatherization was important
- Dispatchable generation, gas-fired generation is there and will be dependable
- Springer – Highlights small generators as being able to support grids
- Springer – Communication form PUC has been much better; notices alarm people, but is the right thing to do while we’re making changes
- Springer – Do we have enough capacity today to meet needs of Texas?
- We do for the rest of the summer, though power system is such that a plant could trip or powerline could go down and change that
- Smaller generators could be creatively used if they could support during an emergency, not sure of the economics of it
- Springer – May need to incentivize them; a lot of what we saw in the Winter Storm was not doing the basic human action like filling out necessary forms; need to make sure we’re using all assets efficiently and properly
- Enjoyed discussion about the interconnection queue, new techs are being used to increase flow of power through the lines; something we might get ERCOT to look at
- Springer – USF is a massive issue for those on telephone coops, etc.; when billing changes from the industry that deplete this, it is the responsibility of the PUC to come in and adjust this
- Will continue to look at this and try to come up with answer, believes in coops & commits to looking into this issue
- Springer – Highlights need to have continued focus on this
- Perry – Who do you take direction from? Who dictates rules?
- Legislature
- Perry – Correct, appointment system only works if this is held
- Perry – Highlights that it is critical everybody share the load with USF, rural exchanges are crucial; former PUC people didn’t do their job
- Eckhardt – What is your perspective of continued vertical integration of MOUs and coops, treated differently under PUC because they are nonprofit
- Believer in these systems because they are self-governed, coops and municipally-owned utilities have done an excellent job of regulating themselves through their voters
- Eckhardt – With increasing extreme weather events that are affected by demand, what do you see as reasonable energy-efficiency goals
- No number, but efficiency is important as Is demand response, efficiency is a very inexpensive way to reduce footprints and cost all across the system
All names on the nominations list favorably recommended to full Senate (5-0)