As another winter starts to set in, one big question on the minds of many Texans is about their electricity service: Will the grid managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) hold up should another major winter storm freeze most of the state, as Winter Storm Uri did in February, 2021?
Almost two years after more than 200 Texans perished during that Big Freeze, ERCOT officials admitted Tuesday that, while improvements have certainly been made, the answer to that ultimate question remains in doubt. “There is a scenario where under the most extreme conditions there is not enough power. That is not acceptable,” acknowledged Pablo Vegas, the new CEO of ERCOT during a Tuesday press conference. “We’re not trying to underplay it at all. It does reflect a very low probability scenario, so we want to be clear on what it is.”
That answer is not acceptable to most Texans, especially since Winter Storm Uri brought us “the most extreme conditions” to which Mr. Vegas refered in that statement. But there it is, and many are asking how the grid can still be in such a situation 20 months down the road from Uri, and almost 12 years after a similar winter storm caused major blackouts across the state due to the very same chronic issues with the grid in February, 2011?
No doubt, significant progress has been made related to some of the major grid weaknesses that caused the 2021 disaster, and Vegas talked about some of those at the press conference. Communications between relevant regulatory bodies - like the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) and Public Utilities Commission (PUC) - have been improved, as well as communications between those commissions and the regulated companies. Natural gas facilities critical to grid reliability have been mapped, hopefully meaning ERCOT will not cut off their electric service should it need to implement rolling blackouts, as happened in both 2021 and 2011.
Both the PUC and RRC have implemented weatherization requirements on some, but not all critical infrastructure, and beefed up site inspections, which should prevent some facilities freezing up again during a major weather event. ERCOT itself has implemented major reforms in its management, staffing and procedures since the Uri disaster, all of which should be helpful.
But the real elephant that existed in both 2011 and 2021 remains seated firmly in the room all these months and years later: A shortage of reserve dispatchable thermal generation capacity. It’s an issue that was present in 2011, but neither the legislature nor regulators chose to address it. It was an even more severe issue in 2021, but again, neither legislators nor regulators chose to deal with it. As a result, it continues to linger today.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott believed he could “guarantee” the grid would not fail during the summer months mainly due to a very significant amount of new wind and solar generating capacity that has been added to the grid since February 2021. But wind and solar tend to be less efficient during cold weather than warmer times, making any such guarantee a more risky proposition heading into the coming winter.
Vegas told the press Tuesday that ERCOT is in the midst of conducting a market redesign study, which would enable it to make recommendations to the upcoming 2023 session of the Texas legislature. This is needed, since it is obvious to most stakeholders in the Texas electricity market that market revisions must be made to send the needed signals to generators to build more dispatchable thermal capacity. Those are signals that haven’t really existed for more than a decade now.
The alternative to a market redesign would be for the legislature to pass legislation using a portion of the massive Texas budgetary surplus to provide appropriate incentives. The official surplus estimate published by the Texas Comptroller’s office in June was an unprecedented $27 billion, but some believe it is much higher, and will likely be officially revised upwards in January.
Peter Lake, Chairman of the PUC, told the press “We’re better prepared than ever.” That’s true, but so long as this chronic shortage of dispatchable thermal capacity persists, it could turn out to not be good enough.
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December 01, 2022 at 09:26PM
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In Texas, ERCOT Still Can’t Guarantee Grid Reliability - Forbes
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