DALLAS (AP) – Power outages plaguing Texas at unusual Arctic temperatures expose the weaknesses of an electrical system designed when seasonal weather changes were more consistent and predictable – conditions that most experts believe no longer exist.
This is not just happening in Texas, of course. Utilities from Minnesota to Mississippi imposed continuous disruptions to ease the voltage on the electricity networks flaming in high demand in recent days. And power outages have become a summer and fall rite in California, partly to reduce the chances of fatal fires.
But the fact that more than 3 million bone-chilled Texans have lost their electricity in a state that prides itself on its energy independence underscores the seriousness of a growing problem in the United States.
WHAT HAPPENED IN TEXAS?
The low temperature caused the Texans to turn off their heaters, including many inefficient electric ones. Demand has risen to levels normally seen only on the hottest summer days, when millions of air conditioners are operating at full tilt.
The state has a generating capacity of about 67,000 megawatts in winter, compared to a maximum capacity of about 86,000 megawatts in summer. The gap between winter and summer supply reflects power plants that go offline for maintenance in the months when demand is usually less intense and does not come from as much energy from wind and solar sources.
But planning for this winter did not imagine temperatures cold enough to freeze natural gas lines and stop wind turbines from spinning. As of Wednesday, 46,000 megawatts of power were offline at the state level – 28,000 from natural gas, coal and nuclear power plants and 18,000 from wind and solar power, according to the Texas Electrical Reliability Council, which operates the state’s power grid.
“Each of our power supplies has been underperforming,” said Daniel Cohan, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University in Houston. posted on Twitter. “Each of them is vulnerable to extreme weather and climate conditions in different ways. None of them were adequately air-conditioned or prepared for a full range of weather and conditions. ”
The staggering imbalance between Texas’ demand and supply of energy has also caused prices to rise from about $ 20 per megawatt hour to $ 9,000 per megawatt hour in the state’s wholesale energy market.
This has raised questions about whether some electricity generators that buy on the wholesale market can have a profit motive to avoid buying more natural gas and simply to stop.
“We can’t speculate on people’s motivations in this way,” said Bill Magness, CEO of ERCOT. He added that he was told by the generators that they were doing their best to supply energy.
WHY WASN’T THE STATE PREPARED?
Gas-fired power plants and wind turbines can be protected from winter weather – this is usually done in colder northern states. The problem arose in Texas after the 2011 freeze, which also led to power outages and outages. A national electricity industry group has developed winter guidelines that operators must follow, but these are strictly voluntary and also require costly investment in equipment and other necessary measures.
An ERCOT official, Dan Woodfin, said plant upgrades after 2011 limited shutdowns during a similar cold spell in 2018, but this week’s weather was “more extreme”.
Ed Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston, dismissed ERCOT’s claim that this week’s freeze was unpredictable.
“It’s stupid,” he said. “Every eight to 10 years we have very bad winters. This is not a surprise. ”
In California, regulators last week ordered the state’s three major utilities to increase their power supply and make potential plant improvements to avoid another supply shortage, such as the one in California six months ago. and led to disruptions that affected about 500,000 people for several hours in a row.
“The big difference is that California’s leadership recognizes that climate change is happening, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in Texas,” said Severin Borenstein, a professor of business administration and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, who is studying power supply problems for more than 20 years.
WHY NEED FOR BLACKOUT ROLLERS?
Network operators say continuous outages are the last resort when energy demand overwhelms supply and threatens to create a wider collapse of the entire energy system.
Usually, utilities blacken certain blocks or areas before interrupting power in another area and then in another. Often, areas with hospitals, fire stations, water treatment plants and other key facilities are exempt.
Reducing disruptions, no neighborhood should pass without an unfairly long period of time, but that has not always been the case this week in Texas. Some areas never lost their power, while others were shut down for 12 hours or more as temperatures dropped in numbers.
WHEN DO THEY APPEAR?
Continuous interruptions are usually triggered when reserves fall below a certain level. In Texas, as in California, in August last year, network operators told utilities to reduce the load on the entire system, and it was up to utilities to decide how to do this.
In Texas this week, network operators and utilities knew about the terrible weather forecast for at least a week. Last weekend, they launched calls for energy conservation, and ERCOT posted on Twitter that residents should “unplug the new luxury appliances you bought during the pandemic and used only once.”
Slight attempts at humor were lost on the residents, few if any of them were told in advance when their homes would lose their power. Once the outages started, some utilities could not provide information on how long it might take.
WHAT CAN BE DONE TO REDUCE ROLLING STOCK?
Start with the obvious steps: When power companies or network operators warn you of a problem, turn off the thermostat and avoid using major appliances. Of course, these steps are sometimes easier said than done, especially during record temperatures.
As elsewhere, Texans may be more willing to adjust their thermostats a few more notches if regulators imposed a system that required households to pay higher prices during peak demand periods and lower rates at other times.
“People are opening their ovens now because there is no financial incentive not to do so,” Borenstein said.
Experts also say more fundamental – and more costly – changes need to be made. Generators must insulate pipes and other equipment. Investing in electricity storage and distribution would help. Clearer building codes would make homes in places like Texas better insulated from the cold.
Texas, which has a network largely disconnected from others to avoid federal regulations, may have to rethink its strategy of going it alone. There could be pressure for the state to ask power generators to keep more power plants in reserve for peak demand periods, a step it has resisted so far.
“The system as we build it doesn’t work to the standards we want to see,” said Joshua Rhodes, an energy researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. “We have to do a better job. If that means paying more for energy to be more reliable, this is a conversation we will have to have. ”
___
Koenig reported from Dallas, Liedtke reported from San Ramon, California. AP’s Paul Weber contributed to this story from Austin, Texas.