Texas power grid CEO fired over blackouts

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas’ power grid manager was fired Wednesday amid growing calls for his ouster after February’s blackouts that left millions of people without electricity and heat for days in subfreezing temperatures.

Bill Magness, CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, becomes the second senior official to depart in the wake of the one of the worst blackouts in U.S. history. The state’s top utility regulator resigned Monday.

Magness was given a twomonth termination notice by the council’s board in a meeting Wednesday night. The move came as the grid operator is now under investigation by the House Oversight Committee.

Magness, who made more than $876,000 in salary and other compensation in 2019, was the target of much of the anger over the blackouts that began Feb. 15 when a winter storm plunged temperatures into single digits across Texas, causing skyrocketing demand for electricity to heat homes. Grid operators unplugged more than 4 million customers as the system buckled, which Magness has said was necessary to avert an even more catastrophic blackout that could have lasted months.

But the power did not flip back on for days for millions of residents, and the prolonged outages quickly escalated to a crisis of tragic proportions, as people trying to keep warm died of carbon monoxide poisoning and others froze to death. The storm and resulting blackouts have been blamed for more than 40 deaths in Texas, but the full toll may not be known for months.

At least six Electric Reliability Council of Texas board members have stepped down in the aftermath of the blackouts. Many of them lived out of state, a fact that intensified anger toward the council as the crisis unfolded.