A population boom and extreme weather frequently puts a strain on Texas' power grid, prompting calls for conservation among electricity users. The Electric Reliability Council Of Texas hopes a new, 5-year plan of improving the power grid will help decrease the need for rolling outages.
A new report from ERCOT, released last Friday, said they'll spend nearly $9 billion on those improvements to the state's power grid; more than half of which will support 17,000 megawatts of renewable power generation.
The project will also add nearly 6,700 circuit miles of transmission lines across the state.
The improvements will be paid for through a "postage-stamp" transmission rate charge billed to all customers. A postage-stamp rate is where the transmission charge is the same regardless of the location of the customer -- similar to how a first-class postage stamp rate is the same no matter where the letter is being sent in the U.S.
