A February 21st report in The Texas Tribune explained how deregulation and RTOs failed Texas and forced the state to import power from Mexico.
Blackouts Revive Debate Over Electric Deregulation
Three weeks ago, dozens of the state’s power generators failed in frigid weather, causing the worst outages in years and spawning multiple investigations. The crisis even forced Texas to import power from Mexico. When full deregulation began in 2002, state officials insisted Texas could craft a smarter system than California, whose deregulation attempt had failed a year earlier amid intermittent blackouts.