Texas Wind - The ERCOT Story

Texas leads the nation when it comes to wind energy. In fact, there are only four countries in the world with more wind energy than Texas. In this episode of Grid Talk, host Marty Rosenberg talks with Bill Magness, who is the President and CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). Mr. Magness talks about the challenges of managing and delivering large amounts of intermittent wind energy. 

“We had to get educated about when and where the wind blows and make our best forecast for when those resources would be there,” said Magness. “It’s affected most every part of our planning and our operations to try to manage these different sorts of resources because they do behave really differently on the system.”

Getting the energy from where the wind blows to the state’s population centers was also a huge undertaking.

 “In 2020, we energized over a billion dollars’ worth of new transmission projects.”

Bill Magness became ERCOT’s president and chief executive officer in January 2016, after more than five years as ERCOT’s general counsel. Mr. Magness has been in the utility business for 25 years, working with electric and telecommunications companies nationwide. He held executive management positions in the public and private sectors and served as lead counsel in regulatory cases before utility commissions in 16 states. 

Mr. Magness received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.