DALLAS, TX -
In response to today’s Dallas Morning News headline regarding TXU gas-fueled power plants, Mike McCall, CEO of TXU Wholesale, issued the following statement:
"TXU cannot unilaterally shut down power plants. Furthermore, the company doesn’t want to shut down plants — that would be the wrong outcome for Texas where generation capacity is needed to serve the state’s reliability needs. TXU made it clear to the PUC that it does not believe any of these plants should be shut down.
The plain intent of TXU’s letter to the PUC was to initiate a process to obtain approval of a voluntary mitigation plan for these plants for the future.
No generation operator, including TXU, has the authority to unilaterally retire a plant. TXU operates under the rules of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) which has an established process to determine whether or not plants can be retired without jeopardizing the reliability of the Texas power grid. If TXU determined it could no longer justify operation of the plant at a loss, it would notify and provide ERCOT with the opportunity to declare that the plant is a “Reliability Must Run” plant. If needed for reliability, that plant would then be placed under a contract with ERCOT to ensure the plant continues to be available to serve the reliability needs of Texas.
It’s unfortunate that some may misinterpret today’s Dallas Morning News story on TXU Wholesale’s recent letter to the PUC of Texas."