In February, it was a blizzard. Now, in the first part of June, it’s heat.
But both meant the same thing to Texans: Power outages.
On Monday, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) asked Texans to reduce electric use “as much as possible” through Friday, June 18. It said there were several forced generation outages at the same time electric use could set a record for the month.
“Generator owners have reported approximately 11,000 MW (megawatts) of generation is on forced outage for repairs,” ERCOT reported. “Of that, approximately 8,000 MW is thermal and the rest is intermittent resources. According to the summer Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy, a typical range of thermal generation outages on hot summer days is around 3,600 MW. One MW typically powers around 200 homes on a summer day.”
As ERCOT relies on more solar- and wind-power generation, when either one cannot meet the needs, shortages occur. ERCOT reported that the wind output for Monday was forecast 3,500 to 6,000 megawatts between 3-9 p.m.,or about 1,500 MW lower than what is typically available for peak conditions.
Meanwhile, peak demand for power set a record, with the peak load forecast for Monday exceeding 73,000 MW. The previous record for any date in June is 69,123 MW between 4-5 p.m. on June 27, 2018.
The comments on ERCOT’s Facebook page were scathing.
“Everyone wanted wind and solar, and coal was bad,” wrote JonBoi Gordon. “Y’all remember this when your lights get turned off. We have been screaming we need more natural gas units to compensate for unreliable wind and solar, to no avail. Closed more coal units without being replaced; we’ve closed down pipelines and here we are. Now everyone wants reliable power.
“Generation companies have been begging to build new facilities, only to be turned down. Get ready for a hot summer and high electric prices, cause it’s here.”
Beka Stelzer said it was time for answers.
“After your massive failure in February, I would like to know what you have done to correct the errors that led to millions of Texans being without electricity and water,” Stelzer posted. “This weather is not unusual for Texas this time of year and if this organization is doing what it was created to do, then there shouldn’t be an issue. I would appreciate some transparency in the steps being taken to correct your ridiculous shortages. You at least owe the people you serve some honesty in why ERCOT is still not meeting Texans’ electricity needs.”
What makes this especially troublesome is that it is still spring. Summer doesn’t officially arrive until Sunday, June 20.
Texas Public Policy Foundation Vice President of National Initiatives Chuck DeVore forecast such problems on Tuesday, June 8, during the TPPF’s State of the Taxpayer Tour kickoff event in Austin.
DeVore said wind and solar power have proved not to be dependable energy sources. He said the power outages caused by Winter Storm Uri in February likely would be replicated this summer.
“We have never valued reliability, we haven’t put a value on it,” DeVore said. “So what ends up happening is, you have in the case of California, mandated solar and wind. You have federal rules, that, for example, with the production-tax credit, pay wind producers for that energy, allowing them to actually put energy into the grid and pay the grid to take it during frequent times at night when it’s windy and there’s low demand.
“So they’re paying the grid to take their power, and they still make a profit from the federal production-tax credit,” he continued. “And that, of course, completely wrecks the economic value for thermal producers who have to stay online, they have to pay staff, they have fuel costs, and that discourages investment in thermal.”
If that is not addressed, the percentage of electricity produced by solar or wind will continue to climb, making the grid increasingly vulnerable to blackouts, especially in the summer when temperatures rise but wind speeds decline.
“We can see it coming,” DeVore said. “It is happening.”
ERCOT Vice President of Grid Planning and Operations Woody Rickerson said they were trying to understand why so much power was suddenly unavailable.
“We will be conducting a thorough analysis with generation owners to determine why so many units are out of service,” Rickerson said in a release. “This is unusual for this early in the summer season.”
The the number of outages was expected to decrease throughout the week, according to ERCOT. It asked people to take some “simple actions” to alleviate the power problems, including:
Set thermostats to 78 degrees or higher, since every degree of cooling increases energy use by 6-8%.
Turn off lights and pool pumps and avoid using large appliances like ovens, washing machines and dryers.
Turn off and unplug any unused electrical items.
More information is available at the Power to Save website, or by following ERCOT on Twitter or Facebook. Residents may also sign up for mobile alerts or view emergency alerts at lists.ercot.com.
