Power lines stretch across the horizon in Dallas on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, where amid widespread power losses, millions of Texans were advised to boil their water for safety.
Kevin Morazan warms his hands after lightning his charcoal grill to cook after losing power in the Greenspoint area due to rolling blackouts during the recent winter storm. A deep freeze in 1989 brought even colder temperatures to Texas than the recent winter storm, but lights stayed. What happened to make the power grid less reliable in the intervening 30 years?
Manessa Grady adjusts an oil lamp while spending time with her sons Zechariah, 8, left, and Noah, 9, at their home in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday evening, Feb. 16, 2021.
System operators work in the command center of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas in Taylor. About 90 percent of Texas' electric load is managed by ERCOT.
The Alamo is seen early Monday morning, Feb. 15, 2021 behind a layer of snow. The National Weather Service reported Tuesday morning that San Antonio and surrounding areas saw 3-5 inches of snow and some pockets of the forecast area saw 6-7 inches of snow. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has also declared the highest level of energy emergency and is requiring rolling blackouts throughout Texas. The National Weather Service reports the areas temperatures are the coldest since 1989.
Lawmakers listen as Bill Magness, President and CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), testifies as the Committees on State Affairs and Energy Resources hold a joint public hearing to consider the factors that led to statewide electrical blackouts, Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021, in Austin, Texas. The hearings were the first in Texas since a blackout that was one of the worst in U.S. history, leaving more than 4 million customers without power and heat in subfreezing temperatures. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
A lone person walks early Monday morning, Feb. 15, 2021 on a blanket of snow on Alamo Street towards Houston Street. The National Weather Service reported Tuesday morning that San Antonio and surrounding areas saw 3-5 inches of snow and some pockets of the forecast area saw 6-7 inches of snow. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has also declared the highest level of energy emergency and is requiring rolling blackouts throughout Texas. The National Weather Service reports the areas temperatures are the coldest since 1989.
Workers crawled under my house this week, taping electric heating strips to the underside of my water pipes, a necessary measure after they froze and burst in 15 places over the last two winters.
My home sits 5 feet off the ground in some places, so when a polar vortex blows into Texas, standard insulation and running water are not enough to prevent the suspended pipes from freezing. From now on, I’m betting the Texas grid operator will keep the electricity — and my water — flowing.
Despite worrisome headlines, I have faith in the grid overseen by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Dozens of corporations make money selling energy to Texans, and executives know another failure like February 2021’s Winter Storm Uri will cost them dearly, financially and politically.
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So while the grid isn’t completely fixed, neither is it completely broken.
ERCOT’s new executive team is more politicized than ever. The governor and lieutenant governor have put them on notice, and the Texas Legislature has passed a suite of laws that, in addition to giving the natural gas industry more cash, are designed to boost reliability and transparency.
ERCOT must now produce the Monthly Outlook for Resource Adequacy, which calculates the risk of rotating outages. The January outlook warned of a 16% chance ERCOT would order unplanned blackouts if we experience a repeat of last December’s Winter Storm Elliot.
The most likely hours for outages are between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. when the wind dies down, people turn on coffee pots and the sun is low on the horizon, ERCOT warned.
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Texans reacted with outrage at the 1-in-6 chance of going without electricity on a frigid morning, but their anger was misplaced. The odds have always been bad; we’ve simply not known them before. At least now we understand the pinch point we must address.
The outlook also revealed that the odds of rolling outages are infinitesimal outside those critical hours. Politicians, power executives and the public must now decide how to reduce the risk to 1 in 10, the industry standard for extreme weather events.
ERCOT executives proposed spending billions to resuscitate old coal and natural gas power plants to cover their behinds, but the corporations that own those mothballed facilities said no way. Like a jilted lover, ERCOT later declared it didn’t really need the extra power anyway.
“The request for additional capacity was an extra layer of precaution to mitigate higher risk during extreme weather this winter,” ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas said. “ERCOT is not projecting emergency conditions this winter and expects to have adequate resources to meet demand.”
Vegas is right. Texas only has a 2% chance each winter of experiencing another storm like Uri, state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon reported. And even if one hits, the odds are only 1 in 6 that generators will not produce enough power to keep the heat on.
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So far, though, I’ve only focused on electricity generation. Texans rely on natural gas power plants for half of our electricity needs during peak demand periods. Those turbines cannot spin without fuel.
During Winter Storm Uri, the natural gas pipeline system’s failure is what triggered four days of blackouts that killed hundreds of Texans. The North American Electric Reliability Corp. determined the natural gas industry was primarily responsible for the 2021 outages.
The Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates pipeline companies, has done little to boost pipeline reliability, but legal and political action has made a difference.
In August, I wrote about a series of lawsuits alleging pipeline companies intentionally withheld gas to boost profits during the cold weather. We should hope these allegations are true because that would make solving the pipeline problem easier. Evidence from Winter Storm Elliott in 2022 suggests they are.
After 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott and railroad commissioners made it clear that another blackout would trigger a regulatory assault like they’d never seen before. The result was smooth sailing during Winter Storm Elliott, a storm similar to Uri.
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Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has also told executives that if Texas again suffers blackouts, he will reregulate the industry and end the competitive electricity market, lobbyists and lawmakers, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid Patrick’s ire, said.
Nothing motivates like fear, which is why I think the grid will hold up and the electric heat tape will keep my pipes warm. But if the power does go out, I’ll calmly turn the water off at the meter, open the faucets and catch the first plane for Cancun.
Chris Tomlinson, named 2021 columnist of the year by the Texas Managing Editors, writes commentary about money, politics and life in Texas. Sign up for his “Tomlinson’s Take” newsletter at HoustonChronicle.com/TomlinsonNewsletter or Expressnews.com/TomlinsonNewsletter.
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