The Public Utility Commission of Texas urged the Texas Supreme Court to overturn a court ruling that found the agency overstepped its authority by allowing power prices to soar during the state’s deadly 2021 winter storm, Reuters reported. The PUCT defended its actions during the storm in an appeal filed Thursday, writing that regulators made “split-second decisions” during a “life-or-death situation” that may not be popular, but were necessary to address a market failure. Attorneys for the regulator said the recent ruling against them has “thrown Texas’s electricity and associated markets into confusion.” Last week a state appeals court stunned the Texas power market by siding with power generator Vistra Corp. which claimed in a lawsuit that PUCT had exceeded its authority by pinning prices to $9,000-per-megawatt-hour for days during the February 2021 storm, resulting in billions of dollars in overcharges to consumers. The decision reversed a pair of orders by the commission.
