After spending quite a bit of time reading everything I could get my hands or Zoom on about the failure of the Texas energy grid, I learned a lot but also decided that I know what I don’t know, which is a lot more, and the jury is still out on the myriad of questions about causes and remedies. So I’ll be brief with some thoughts about it:
- Almost everyone can agree that the failure to provide adequate incentives and regulatory mandates to weatherize the system is a major problem that must be fixed immediately. We can discuss how to pay for it, but the fix needs to be urgent.
- Federal integration of the Texas grid is not a good idea, in fact, it’s pretty clear to me that federal regulations such as the tax credit system for subsidizing renewables are part of the current problem of market distorting policies.
- In the past, lawmakers have discussed requiring generators to develop a”capacity market”–a fleet of reserve power plants for emergencies–but could not agree how to fund it. Those discussions need to be back in the mix along with a kind of “rainy day fund” for energy.
- We should not abandon the model adopted in 1999 to deregulate the system, but market forces alone will not ensure reliability. An outlier event such as we just encountered must be, in effect, insured and underwritten.
- The Public Utility Commission should be given the authority and tools by the Legislature to regulate resiliency standards and manage the necessary trade-offs in public and consumer funding, with full accountability for performance.
- As we discuss and debate the causes of and solutions to the Texas energy crisis, we must avoid making the conversation about “global warming” or “climate change” and their possible impact or not. Let’s fix the immediate reliability problems and let the lab work and related discussions and lectures continue in the lab.
Obviously, this is more than a two-drink conversation, but the Texas Legislature has no higher priority than the state budget itself in this legislative session, and right now Texas, as the world’s energy capital, is feeling pretty embarrassed.
All well stated Jim.
Beyond my pay grade, but thanks for digging in, Jim — has kind of a Dr. Seuss ring to it.
The West TX wind farms are the greatest problem. Almost all failed in their ‘duty’ to generate 23% of TX electricity.
Why does TX have so many China-made windmills? Because of federal subsidies to mill owners, plus that West TX is largely without population; just ranches with cows, and cows do not vote. So for a rancher to get annual lease payments per windmill is pure gravy. like having the Permian Basin underfoot.
Drive I-10 from Ft. Stockton to El Paso. The #s of windmills one sees just from the highway are astonishing. Think of those you do not see, in arrayed ranks behind them
That is propaganda. Although I am not a cow, I reside in West Texas. Our utility generates 30% of its power from windmills. Windmills don’t count towards baseload capacity because winds (even in West Texas) are unreliable. Despite freezing conditions (-12F and a foot of snow), we only “suffered” two 30 minute rolling blackouts due to conservation requests by our grid operator, the Southwestern Power Pool (part of the national US eastern grid). The idea that windmills, much less ‘Chinese” windmills, are the problem in Texas is baseless propaganda. Winterize the gas lines and grid and the problem is solved.
This week it was confirmed that a simple bureaucratic fix could have prevented the massive Texas winter storm blackouts and easily prevent them in the future: simply add natural gas pipeline electric pumps to the list of critical infrastructure like hospitals so they don’t get their power cut. If the gas had kept pumping through those pipelines, the gas-fired electric generation plants would have stayed online:
“Grant Ruckel, vice president of government affairs at pipeline company Energy Transfer, testified that the biggest failure during the disaster was cutting power to gas pipelines, many of which are not listed as essential services, a designation made for hospitals and other critical infrastructure.” …
“Deshotel said he had asked generators how many plants would have gone down if they hadn’t lost gas pressure, and the answer was only a couple.”
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/article/TEXAS-POWER-GRID-HEARINGS-Natural-gas-suppliers-15983568.php
In the Panhandle, Xcel energy is: a) not a part of ERCOT, b) is a member of the SPP (part of the eastern US grid), c) is also connected to Western Grid through New Mexico, d) generates 30% of its power from wind farms, e) is regulated by FERC and Texas PUC, f) endures single digit or below 0F temps every winter, g) has among the highest reliability rates in Texas (better than ERCOT), h) has lower average cost to consumers than ERCOT.
The Panhandle, reliably the most conservative part of Texas, spurned efforts in the 1990s to join the deregulated part of Texas because we were already the lowest cost region in the state for electricity and our power supply had outstanding reliability ratings. I’m thankful for the decisions of our political leaders at the time for that decision. (In fact, I worked in economic development for the Amarillo EDC and we were highly supportive of the decision to not enter the deregulated market.)
From my perspective way up here in Amarillo (which is closer to Oklahoma City, Santa Fe, Denver and Topeka than it is to Austin), I am really thankful that our area never joined ERCOT. It seems to me that the benefits of deregulation were oversold…electricity still costs more in Houston, Austin, or Dallas than it does in Amarillo. And, obviously, ERCOT and PUC didn’t take the necessary steps to winterize the grid and generating capacity.
If you look at deregulation as an ideological article of faith, it will ALWAYS seem like the right thing. In the case of energy, the ideal was much better than the reality. The good news for ERCOT is that the weather is usually warm, the headlines are always new, and people’s memory is short. I imagine there will be some toothless reforms. At some point the system will fail again, and years down the road I’ll be an old man waxing poetic about how Amarillo made the right call in the 1990s and still has cheaper power and more reliable service than our friends downstate.
Bob – As I suggested, the market alone will not ensure reliability; the problem is we failed on the other components. Whether or not we now have the political will to apply the fix to the model is questionable, as you indicate. We’ll see. Thanks for your perspective on it.
Bob: I am glad you had such a brief outage. But am I wrong when I read that West Tx windmills were not at all winterized? That water turning to ice entered the windmill generators and thus destroyed them? That they all failed, and most were damaged and will have to be replaced?
ERCOT and PUC will not bear the repair/replacement costs; power users will.