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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

Watkins' Letter Reveals Off-Balance Sheet Entities

LCG, Jan. 17, 2002--Enron Corp. depended on outside partnerships for hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue which never appeared on Enron's own income statements, according to a letter by an Enron vice-president, Sherron Watkins, to Ken Lay, Enron chairman.

Instead, the earnings from entities previously unknown to the public, called Condor and Raptor, may have been used to offset losses in other ventures. Raptor generated revenue through trading in the stock of public companies; some of the stocks were in companies of which Enron was a customer, such as the Enron subsidiary New Power Company, and Avici Systems, which deals in data networking equipment.

Analysts who have reviewed the substance of Watkins' letter say that $500 million generated by Raptor, as well as $800 million generated by Condor, may need to be deducted on Enron's income statements, and cause earnings to be revised downward by an additional $1.3 billion. In October, $1.2 billion was written off due to criticism that outside partnerships' activity was not explicitly included on Enron's own financial issuances.

Watkins expressed concern in her letter that when Condor produced revenue, the transaction between Condor and Enron should most likely have been characterized as an exchange of stock for cash, rather than increased cash flow. She wrote, "if Enron stock did well, the stock issuance to these entities would decline, and the transactions would be less noticeable. All has gone against us."

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