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The resulting crisis could be a boon to Biden’s proposal to spend huge sums of money to harden the country’s electricity grid as he connects giant wind and solar power plants to cities and states to thousands of people. kilometers. This is an essential step if the United States is to make a major shift towards using solar, wind and other renewable energies to keep the lights on.
“When the offer doesn’t come up, legislative or regulatory intervention begins,” said Kevin Book, managing director of consulting firm ClearView Energy Partners. “Responsiveness to a supply shock is one of the few things you can count on.”
Frigid temperatures have driven energy demand in Texas to levels that have eclipsed even the hottest summer days. Grid operators there and in the Midwest have implemented continual power outages to prevent further damage to the grid, but in Texas alone, 4 million customers have been without power since Monday.
Investigations into the causes are only just beginning, but data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s electricity grid, has shown that at least 30 gigawatts of electricity powered by natural gas, coal and nuclear were disconnected Monday, as well as 16 gigawatts. renewable energy.
National Republicans – and those with national aspirations – have snatched photos of frozen wind turbines to hammer home Washington’s green energy agenda, even as Texas operates a grid outside federal oversight and has spent decades to make their own energy decisions.
“If the last few days have proven anything, it’s that we need oil and gas”,tweeted George P. Bush, who, as Texas land commissioner, oversees much of the state’s oil and gas production. “Relying solely on renewable energies would be catastrophic. Many of these sources have proven to be unreliable. “
“Texas is frozen over because people don’t have the power to stay safe and warm,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) Tweeted Tuesday. “It is a perfect example of the need for reliable sources of energy like natural gas and coal.”
But the extreme cold has also shut down much of these fossil fuel sources. Natural gas wellheads froze and coal and nuclear power generators in Texas were taken offline, as Abbott himself recognized.
Furthermore, the national debate on green energy versus fossil fuels is not what it was 10 or 20 years ago. The balance of power has shifted as the auto industry, Wall Street and even some fossil fuel companies line up behind renewables and work to shape the multibillion dollar transition to cleaner energy, a change that they defend for economic reasons.
“Wind and solar and, increasingly, storage are the most competitive options on the grid,” said Jeff Dennis, managing director of Advanced Energy Economy, a national association of large users of electricity and electricity. other companies that promote clean energy. “There are good reasons to rapidly scale our investment in these technologies to improve both our reliability and our resilience.”
The change made Washington’s usual energy blame game less one-sided. Biden’s allies inside and outside of government spread the message that the Arctic explosion showed the urgency of tackling climate change and was another taste of the disasters the country can expect. due to extreme weather conditions.
“We need to think about how our global infrastructure can accommodate increasingly common unusual events,” said Representative Sean Casten (D-Ill.). “It is tragic that so many people across the aisle are using it to denigrate renewable energy.”
Clean energy groups quickly came to support the Democrats. The American Council on Renewable Energy, a clean energy trading group, said specific regional conditions had exacerbated the crisis in Texas: the state’s grid, while geographically large, is almost entirely cut off from the rest of the country. , so that he could not draw electricity. other regions. In contrast, parts of the Midwest that avoided Texas fate are members of regional power grids connected by high-voltage transmission lines.
ACORE said expanding these interregional power lines would make the grid more resilient, preventing future crises.
“It is time for Congress to adopt an ambitious infrastructure initiative to expand and modernize the US network,” Greg Wetstone, CEO of ACORE, said in a statement.
The Biden plan is aimed at greening the economy and will likely include money for additional transmission lines, weathering, battery storage, burying power lines, and other power grid upgrades.
“[The grid] is really uber-infrastructure and we need to make sure it is resilient, ”said Melanie Kenderdine, director of the Energy Futures Initiative and former director of the Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis in the Department of energy under President Barack Obama. “We need to think about putting the main essential electrical infrastructure underground. Expensive? Yes, but the entire state of Texas has closed its doors.
Bill Magness, CEO of ERCOT, which manages the state’s network, said the extreme weather conditions were “unprecedented” in the operator’s existence, but that by Tuesday evening the operator had restored a little electricity. Despite a new storm in the forecast, slightly warmer temperatures should allow more generators to return to service.
The White House, meanwhile, avoided getting drawn into the debate on Tuesday.
The Biden administration is currently focused on “ensuring that the millions of people across Texas who are affected by the storm get the help they need,” Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters . “Obviously, since there are investments in future forms of energy across the country, they will have to plan for bad weather, but I think it’s a discussion and conversation that is a bit later. . “
Zack Colman and Ben Lefebvre contributed to this report.
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