Brazos Electric Power Cooperative Executive VP Clifton Karnei was a ERCOT board board member until Feb. 25; when the cooperative received a $2.1 billion bill from the manager of Texas’ power grid.
Karnei resigned from the ERCOT board last week — becoming the seventh resignation to hit the board in response to the fallout over power grid failure.
Karnei’s resignation happened the same week bills totaling $2.1 billion owed to ERCOT came due.
On Feb. 25, the day Karnei resigned, Brazos Electric Cooperative sent ERCOT a letter explaining the cooperative would not pay the bill.
The Brazos Electric filing claims the ERCOT wholesale market will see $55 billion in charges from the week-long winter storm timeframe; four years’ worth of charges from a single week.
“Brazos Electric will not foist this catastrophic ‘black swan’ financial event onto its members and their consumers, and commenced this bankruptcy to maintain the stability and integrity of its entire
electric cooperative system,” Karnei wrote in the bankruptcy declaration filed in Houston on March 1.
Brazos Electric Cooperative’s total power costs for all of 2020 totaled $774 million.
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