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Vistra to Install New Gas-Fired Units at Permian Basin Power Plant

LCG, September 30, 2025--Vistra Corp. announced yesterday that it will proceed with the next phase of its capital plan to support grid reliability in Texas. In 2024, Vistra identified over $1 billion worth of potential capital additions in generation capacity within the Texas ERCOT market by 2028 if market conditions were supportive. Now, with West Texas' growing power requirements, particularly the state's expanding oil and natural gas industries, Vistra reached a final investment decision and confirms it will build two new advanced natural gas-fired power units on-site at its Permian Basin Power Plant.

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ERCOT Announces New Grid Research, Innovation and Transformation (GRIT) Initiative

LCG, September 24, 2025--Electric Reliability Council of Texas Inc. (ERCOT) yesterday announced its new initiative to increase its efforts to fully use and apply innovation and transformation through industry collaboration to best overcome the challenges and opportunities facing future grid operations. The new Grid Research, Innovation, and Transformation (GRIT) initiative will advance research and prototyping of emerging concepts and solutions to better understand the implications of rapid grid and technology evolution and position ERCOT to lead in the future energy landscape.

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Industry News

Cal-ISO to Line Up Band-Aid Power for Next Summer

LCG, Oct. 5, 2000the governors of the California Independent System Operator yesterday sent the Cal-ISO staff in search of temporary peaking power to help the agency avoid the power crunches that threatened to force rolling blackouts all summer long this year.

Due to a strong economy fueled by a power-hungry high tech industry, and because regulatory fiddle-faddling has delayed the development of new power plants, the state's demand for electricity has outstripped its ability to produce power. It is estimated that Silicon Valley, in the southern San Francisco Bay Area, has a power demand that grows by 10 megawatts per day.

During this past summer, Cal-ISO was forced to declare an unprecedented 31 "stage two" power emergencies this past summer, and ask utilities to conserve power.

Yesterday's action by the ISO's Board of Governors will allow the purchase of up to $255 million worth of peaking generation. The projects under consideration amount to about 2,000 megawatts, after a preliminary evaluation based on environmental, economical and reliability considerations.

Patrick Dorinson, a spokesman for Cal-ISO, said "The board approved management to pursue agreements for temporary peaking power generators that would be used to maintain electric reliability during the summer months."

The ISO would have the right to call on the peaking power for up to 500 hours during the summer season, between June 1 and October 31, in exchange for a capacity payment. The ISO would require that the generation be scheduled in the forward markets as much as possible. An astonishing 25 percent of power purchases this past summer were made in the highly volatile spot market.

Owners of the units would be allowed to run the plants whenever they wished and participate in the markets on their own, so long as it did not interfere with Cal-ISO's ability to call on those plants when needed to ensure reliability.

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