China News Service, Houston, February 24. After the worst large-scale power outage in American history occurred in Texas last week, five board members including the chairman and vice chairman of the State Electric Reliability Commission (ERCOT) resigned on the 24th. .

　　According to the Associated Press, the Texas Public Utilities Commission (PUC) held an emergency meeting on the 24th and announced the resignation of 5 board members including the chairman of ERCOT, the vice chairman, the chairman of the finance and audit committee, and the chairman of the human resources and governance committee.

Another person announced their withdrawal from participating in the nomination of board members.

According to the Associated Press, none of the five who resigned live in Texas.

On February 20, local time, due to a blizzard and extremely cold weather in Texas, USA, water and electricity supplies were in short supply in some areas. Rodney Roberts, who lives in Texas, fetched water from his swimming pool to flush the toilet.

　　The media said that ERCOT is not a government department, but it accepts policy guidance from the state legislature and PUC.

According to ERCOT’s articles of association, board members have a term of 3 years, subject to PUC approval, must be non-partisan, and do not require living in Texas.

The PUC chairperson is appointed by the Governor of Texas.

　　Texas suffered a rare winter storm in the early morning of the 15th, and temperatures across the state dropped below zero degrees Celsius.

ERCOT said on the same day that due to bad weather, the power generation equipment was frozen, and there was a huge gap in power generation. The agency had to take turns to cut off the power.

This caused millions of users in Texas to experience power outages that lasted for several days.

When the power outage occurred, the ERCOT website deleted the contact information of board members, saying they were threatened.

ERCOT has reiterated a few days ago that alternate power cuts are necessary.

On February 19, local time, affected by the power outage and water outage caused by the winter storm, many supermarkets in Houston, Texas, USA experienced shortages of drinking water, meat products and other commodities.

The picture shows a shortage of eggs in a HEB supermarket in Houston.

The supermarket posted a purchase restriction notice: a shopping cart can only buy 2 boxes of eggs.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Zeng Jingning

　　In this regard, Texas Governor Abbott believes that the large-scale power outages should be attributed to ERCOT's "lack of preparation and lack of transparency."

Abbott said that ERCOT had promised that Texas’s power infrastructure was prepared for winter storms, but when Texans desperately needed electricity, ERCOT failed to do its job, and the people had to be frozen at home.

Abbott said that ERCOT will be investigated to ensure that this catastrophic event does not repeat itself.

　　According to the "Houston Chronicle" report, it is expected that later this week, the Texas State Assembly will hold a hearing on the massive power outage.

The mayor of Houston, Texas, Turner said that both PUC and ERCOT are responsible for the incident.

He said: "I submitted a PUC-related bill in 2011 to ensure that ERCOT has enough power reserves to prevent power outages. This bill has not been heard."

　　Texas established ERCOT in 1970 to ensure that electric utilities in the state follow the standards set by the North American Electric Reliability Council.

The ERCOT grid covers 75% of Texas' land and manages the electricity flow of more than 26 million users in the state, accounting for about 90% of the state's total electricity load.

The electricity comes from about 700 generator sets, including wind, natural gas, coal, solar and other power generation equipment, and the transmission line is about 46,500 miles long.

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