https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/massive-power-failure-could-finally-cause-texas-to-connect-with-the-nations-power-grids1/ > Electrical outages affecting some four million Texans over the past week are raising tough questions about the state’s power system, which operates somewhat like a rogue nation within the U.S. The winter storm that broke the grid may prove to be the event that forces the state to reform its grid management practices to better anticipate extreme weather events and also to end its isolation and connect to other multistate power grids around the country. So says Jim Rossi, a Vanderbilt University legal scholar who studies the structure of energy markets and is an expert on the tension between state and federal powers over U.S. energy utilities. > Texas is rich in fossil fuels, renewable power and political power, so for many decades it has run its own power grid, freeing it from federal oversight. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), a nonprofit corporation, manages the network of electrical suppliers, called the Texas Interconnection, which serves 90 percent of the state. ERCOT and Texas have resisted invitations and outright appeals to connect with the nation’s two other power grids: the Eastern Connection, which links suppliers and customers east of the Rockies, and the Western Connection, which links power west of the Rockies.