Power grids in the us5/7/2023 ![]() ![]() "'We're just going to form interconnected systems inside Texas and operate as we wish.'" We're not going to sell power to anybody in Louisiana or Oklahoma or whatever,’” Cohn said. “You can imagine why it was very attractive to these Texas power companies to say, ‘OK, forget it. That way, the state could avoid federal laws that dictated how energy was bought, sold and distributed. ![]() Texas decided at this point not to let its grid connect with power companies in neighboring states. This helped protect consumers from unreasonable prices.īut the new federal regulations applied only if a power company in one state was buying and selling electricity to another state. In 1935, he signed the Public Utility Holding Company Act, which allowed the federal government to regulate and even break up large utility companies. Through his New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sought to prevent consumers from being taken advantage of by the industry. started to form monopolies, leading to exorbitant rates. Texas’ electric grid started coming together.Įventually, electric companies across the U.S. Instead, power companies here started to merge into bigger companies and share power for the first time. People had started to depend on electricity, rather than viewing it as a novelty.īut while many states decided to regulate their local power companies, Texas did not. So we will say who can operate where and how much you can charge your customers for your electric service.'" “They said: 'This is becoming an essential service we want to make sure that it's provided on a fair basis to the citizens of our state. “Starting in 1907, states began to regulate power companies,” said Julie Cohn, an energy historian with the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University. RELATED | That one time the Texas grid was connected to another state During this time, the electric “industry” was just a lot of small power companies selling electricity locally. But eventually, cities started using it for street lights, street cars and powering things like ice makers in their homes. With minimal connection to power plants in other states, Texas didn’t have access to electricity produced in places where snow and ice weren’t shutting things down.įor decades after the first lightbulb was turned on in 1879, electricity was a novelty. Here, electricity is generated and used only within state lines.Īnd that's one reason the February blackouts lasted so long. Texas cannot access power from other states.īut not in Texas. is divided between two main electric grids. Environmental Protection Agency The rest of the continental U.S.
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