The Texas Reliability Entity’s Board of Directors on Wednesday discussed management’s request for a 20% budget increase next year to cover additional staff and relocation costs for new office space.

Staff is seeking to boost annual expenditures from $14.2 million to $17.2 million, still below the average of other EROs. That would cover three new critical infrastructure protection auditors, the office move and the loss of the ERCOT reliability-monitoring contract worth $5.3 million over four years, expiring after 2023. (See PUC Cancels Texas RE as ERCOT’s Reliability Monitor.)

Texas RE was forced to scramble to fill the hole left by the loss, with staff tapping contingency funds and reserves to close the gap with NERC’s final $15 million assessment of registered entities.

CEO Jim Albright said that Texas RE was facing an increase in lease expenses if it stayed in its current location. Instead, it will save about $1.3 million over a 10-year period by moving from Southwest Austin next April to the Met Center, closer to ERCOT’s headquarters and the airport.

The Met Center’s relocation costs were approved last year by the board. The new office space’s construction costs are $4.9 million.

The Texas RE’s cyber security work has increased as threats keep emerging and changing, Albright said. “We need to additional staff to do our work.”

Staff was asked to provide further details on the new personnel after an earlier presentation to the Finance Committee. The board will vote on the budget during its May 19 meeting.

Texas RE, ERCOT to Make Site Visits

Texas RE is collaborating with ERCOT in visits to generating resources May 17-June 30 to evaluate their emergency operations and weatherization plans in preparation for the summer season.

ERCOT said in a market notice that they will prioritize sites that had one or more thermal resources experience some form of outage during recent summer conditions, but they will also randomly select a number of other sites. Resource entities will be notified before the visits.

The grid operator said staff and Texas RE would prefer the visits be held on-site, but resource owners can request video conferences if they have COVID-19 concerns.

ERCOT was criticized for the effectiveness of its site visits — conducted virtually last year — before the most recent winter and the resulting power crisis.

The Texas RE board discussed the February extreme weather and events during its executive session.