Coming into this winter, there was a lot of doom and gloom coverage of Texas’ embattled grid. Even the author of this post got in on the action, highlighting some depressing predictions from a Texas Tribune article:
“Texans are still traumatized by the winter storm of 2021. And why wouldn’t they be? Over 4.5 million customers were left without power, some for several days. Estimates differ, but even the most conservative claim at least 210 people died because of the outages. People living in the richest country in the world don’t expect things like that to happen.
So, almost two years later, you’d expect the Texas grid to be ready for another storm, right? Think again. According to a recent article in the Texas Tribune, not much has changed: “As it happened, not a single company thought reviving an old power plant made sense, and the Nov. 6 deadline passed without a single proposal to revive a power source for the winter.”’
Luckily, however, the Texas power grid has held just fine so far this winter. Most notably, the State just made it through an Artic blast this month that saw Dallas record a -9 wind chill without rolling blackouts.
The publication Axios, which has done a great job covering Texas’ grid since 2021, breaks down how the Texas grid survived the 2024 Artic Blast in a recent article. Here are some notable excerpts:
“Since then, the state has required improvements to aspects of the grid, like natural gas power plants, to make them less susceptible to frigid temperatures.”
“The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the manager of the grid, has also greatly expanded battery storage capacity throughout the state to help meet high demand during extreme temperatures.”
“As frigid temperatures settled in, the grid operator asked its 26 million customers to conserve power on Monday and Tuesday morning, which is particularly hard for the grid during the winter.”
“Rickerson said surplus energy from solar generation throughout the storm helped charge batteries and gave operators a chance to correct issues at thermal plants.”
“But there's still room for improvement, according to Lewin and Rhodes, specifically with energy efficiency, ERCOT's ability to project energy demand and resolving reliability issues with the natural gas supply.”
As many have pointed out, this recent freeze was much more mild than the 2021 storm. Still, it’s obvious that Texas has made improvements as a similar freeze in 2022 forced ERCOT to utilize rolling blackouts. Improved storage and the winterization of many generation sites has worked, but more needs to be done.
I’ve always thought energy efficiency was an obvious choice for Texas, which lags far behind some other parts of the country. Options are plentiful: Incentives for attic insulation, smart thermostats, electric furnace upgrades, electric water heaters, heat pumps, and demand response programs that would target air conditioning, ev charging, and water heating. Many of these initiatives are on the table right now because Texas has failed to invest in basic energy efficiency measures over the years. It’s low hanging fruit, really.