Kent Saathoff

Kent Saathoff joined the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in 1988 as principal engineer and in 1996 became its transmission market operations manager. In 2000, he became director of technical operations in preparation for retail electric competition in Texas. He supervised the design, implementation and enhancement of grid operations and wholesale market systems necessary to open the Texas retail market in 2002. In 2002 he became director of system operations, responsible for overseeing real-time system and wholesale market operations in ERCOT. He was made vice president of system operations in 2006.

Mr. Saathoff is an electrical engineering graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and a registered professional engineer in Texas. He started his career at Houston Lighting and Power Company (now CenterPoint Energy) in distribution system protection. He then went to the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT), where he was responsible for review and testimony in proceedings regarding transmission and generation project certification, plant depreciation and rate design, and he ultimately became director of the electric division. While at the PUCT, he was instrumental in developing initial rules for transmission access in ERCOT. In 1986 he joined the City of Austin electric department as manager of generation planning and remained in this capacity until he joined ERCOT.