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ERCOT Announces Organizational Changes to Promote Grid Reliability, Rapid Demand Growth, and Innovation

LCG, December 12, 2025--Today, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc. (ERCOT) announced strategic organizational changes designed to accelerate innovation, strengthen grid reliability, and support the unprecedented growth in the demand for electricity across Texas. To meet these objectives, ERCOT created two new organizations: Interconnection and Grid Analysis, and Enterprise Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The two organizations will formally launch in January 2026.

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NextEra Energy Resources and Basin Electric Power Cooperative Announce MOU to Develop 1,450-MW Natural Gas-fired Power Plant in North Dakota

LCG, December 8, 2025--Basin Electric Power Cooperative (Basin Electric) and NextEra Energy Resources, LLC (NextEra) today announced that they have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to explore the joint development of the River Run Energy Center, a new combined-cycle natural gas-fueled generation facility in Basin Electric's North Dakota service territory. The proposed facility will have a planned capacity of approximately 1,450 MW.

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Industry News

Senate Panel Finds FERC Lacking

LCG, November 12, 2002-A Senate panel has determined that the FERC neglected to act on information about Enron and has too few personnel attending to the regulation of industry.

In a report released today, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee found that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should have noticed Enron's irregular behavior as long as five years ago. In the report, Senators pointed to wind farm transactions in 1997 where assets were transferred to secret Enron partnerships instead of companies separate from Enron as promised.

A higher rate on power is allowed to be charged for qualifying facilities such as wind generators; Enron's acquisition of three California wind projects mandated either Enron's sale of the wind assets or a non-special rate on those generators. Enron's secret ownership tacked on an additional and illegal $176 million in collections from the wind farms.

FERC had begun investigating the secret partnerships only last month.

According to the report, "On a number of occasions, FERC was provided with sufficient information to raise suspicions of improper activities -- or had itself identified potential problems -- in areas where it had regulatory responsibilities over Enron, but failed to understand the significance of the information of its implications."

The Senate Committee also noted that FERC had too few staff involved with market oversight and that too small of a percentage of FERC's employees are involved in preventing market abuse.

FERC has already countered that, with only 1,250 employees, 800 of which are involved in safety and licensing, 200 of the remaining 450 are working in oversight and enforcement. The Federal agency has also taken issue with the Senate Committee's criticism of FERC's investigation, saying more skilled investigators have been hired.

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