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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

Frisco Votes Today on Forming Municipal Utility

LCG, Nov. 6, 2001--Voters in San Francisco will decide today whether to form a municipal utility, a move that would involve leaving the pacific Gas & Electric Co. system and taking the utility's distribution network through eminent domain.

Two measures on today's ballot have the backing of Democrats and other liberals -- and there is hardly anything else in San Francisco. One initiative is confined to the city of San Francisco while the other includes the small town of Brisbane, on its southern border.

Angela Alioto, a Democrat, daughter of a former San Francisco mayor and a former San Francisco supervisor herself, is legal counsel for the Municipal Utility District campaign. "There is no question that public power gives the consumer a lower utility bill," she says.

PG&E Corp., parent company of the utility, is fighting the measures, and points out that seizing the distribution system wouldn't provide the power to send through the wires. "You're taking on a huge responsibility without any benefit because buying the system doesn't give you any more power, it just changes the ownership," said Jon Kaufman, a spokesman.

Opposition by PG&E is just one more reason to vote for one or both of the measures, say backers who contend that it is "unconscionable" for the utility, which is mired in bankruptcy proceedings, to spend money owed to its creditors on fighting the initiatives.

PG&E spokeswoman Jennifer Ramp counters "It's only prudent for any company to fight measures that seek a hostile takeover of (its) assets."

San Francisco already owns substantial electricity generation assets -- the city's Hetch Hetchy Water & Power system has three dams in the Sierra Nevada Mountains that have a combined capacity 334.5 megawatts, about a third of the combined needs of San Francisco and Brisbane.

Hetch Hetchy power, however, has been sold under long-term contracts that would have to be abrogated if the electricity was to be used by San Francisco.

No matter what the voters decide today, nothing much is likely to happen for a long time -- PG&E is an old hand at fighting municipalization. It took the city of Sacramento more than 20 years of court battles to finally break away from the utility.

"If these measure pass, nothing's going to change overnight," Kaufman said.

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