ERCOT: 152 plants failed during freeze

AUSTIN (KXAN) - More than 150 generating plants across Texas went forced out of commission during the early February deep freeze, and 91 of those outages occurred during the Feb. 2 emergency rolling blackouts.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages about 85 percent of the state's grid, also said in the report it released Tuesday that at least 18 of the affected plants provide power for Central Texas.

When plants began failingduring the early morning hours of Feb. 2, ERCOT was forced to launch a plan for temporary outages in order to forestall a statewide blackout.

The list of the 152 plants released by ERCOT contains the names of facilities operated by companies that agreed to make the information public. ERCOT said only a tiny fraction of companies that operated plants that failed declined to disclose the information.

ERCOT has approximately 550 generating units.