The Texas Public Utility Commission said Monday that former U.S. Rep. Bill Flores (R) and two others had been selected to be directors on ERCOT’s board, leaving the governing body three members short of a full slate.
The ERCOT Board Selection Committee, appointed by the state’s political leaders, also named Elaine Mendoza and Zin Smati as independent directors and designated Flores as vice chair.
The committee in October named Paul Foster and Carlos Aguilar as the first two of eight independent directors. Foster was also designated as the board’s chairman. (See 2 New ERCOT Directors Named, Replacing Current Board.)
Flores was elected to Congress during the Tea Party wave of 2010 and served five terms before deciding to step down. Before he left office, he joined 125 other Republican representatives in signing an amicus brief supporting Texas’ lawsuit at the U.S. Supreme Court that contested President Biden’s electoral victory over Donald Trump. The high court declined to hear the protest.
Previously involved in Texas’ energy industry, Flores was CEO of Phoenix Exploration Co., an oil and natural gas company. He was awarded the Texas Public Power Association’s Public Service Leadership Award for his contributions to energy policy.
Mendoza is founder and CEO of Conceptual MindWorks, a medical informatics company in San Antonio, where she has been involved in expanding educational opportunities, health care and economic growth. She serves on the Texas A&M University System’s board of regents and is its former chair. She holds an aerospace engineering degree from Texas A&M.
Smati has 35 years of U.S. and international experience in the electricity and renewable energy industries. He was CEO of GDF SUEZ, now ENGIE, for 10 years and currently serves on the boards of SNC-Lavalin, a global engineering and services group, and Boralex, a renewable energy company.
“Updating the grid is an all-hands-on-deck evolution, so we’re delighted to welcome experienced leadership to our board,” interim ERCOT CEO Brad Jones said in a statement.
The board next meets Dec. 9-10.
State legislation following February’s devastating winter storm replaced the five unaffiliated directors and eight market segment representatives with eight independent directors chosen by a selection committee. The ERCOT CEO, the PUC’s chair and the Office of Public Utility Counsel’s CEO sit on the body as non-voting members.
The law requires each board member to be a Texas resident with executive-level experience in finance, business, engineering, trading, risk management, law or electric market design. When the storm nearly brought the ERCOT system to total collapse, Texans frustrated with the ensuing long-term outages directed their ire toward the six board members who lived outside the state. (See ERCOT Chair, 4 Directors to Resign.)
