ERCOT Includes $130M for Its Chief Information Office in 2024

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has wrapped up its budget process for 2024 and 2025, with a proposed total budget of $424 million in 2024.

This includes $130 million in 2024 for its Chief Information Office, which is also planning to grow its employee base. Its CIO is Jayapal Parakkuth.

The Chief Information Office has 289 employees, according to a summer budget presentation; it hopes to have 313 full-time positions in 2024 and add three more in 2025. Overall, there are almost 900 commission employees to support.

Specific expenses in the CIO budget include:

• Hardware and software licensing and maintenance, $40.8 million in 2024
• Outside services, $6.8 million in 2024

The top five CIO projects listed with a combined $1 million cost for 2024 and 2025 are:

• Second iTest environment, $16 million total
• Data center 5.0 program, $4.2 million total
• Monitoring of North American Electric Reliability Corporation asset baselines, $1.5 million total
• Data virtualization, $1.5 million total
• Market Management System Outage Scheduler refresh 2026, $1.5 million
  

ERCOT procurement is handled by its Supply Chain Management Department, which manages opportunities on its Workday Strategic Sourcing Platform, previously known as Scout RFP.