Aug 16 (Reuters) - The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) said it has approved The Electric Reliability Council of Texas' (ERCOT) appointment of Pablo Vegas as chief executive officer on Tuesday. Vegas will take on the role beginning Oct. 1.
Brad Jones will continue to serve as interim CEO until that day, ERCOT said in a statement.
Vegas is currently executive vice president at NiSource and as group president of NiSource Utilities, the state regulator said in a statement. Before that, he was president and CEO of American Electric Power (AEP), Texas.
ERCOT operates the grid for more than 26 million customers, representing about 90% of Texas' power load.
The United States is expected to use record amounts of power in 2022 due to extreme heat.
A February freeze in 2021 had left millions without power, water and heat for days during a deadly storm as ERCOT scrambled to prevent a grid collapse after an unusually large amount of generation was shut.
So far this year, grids have had enough resources to meet demand. (Reporting by Seher Dareen in Bengaluru Editing by Bernadette Baum)
