Texas power outages: why power outages hit when temperatures plummeted

Texas’ power grid was on the verge of blackout after a cold snap brought record temperatures, snow and power outages statewide. Millions of Texans were without power, and some people wondered why a state that produces the most energy in the United States is unable to keep the lights on. Misinformation about the blackout has also started to spread online, mistakenly blaming wind and solar power.

About 4 million people in Texas faced blackouts for most of the week as power generators and natural gas lines froze, crippling the state’s production capacity. This has led the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages the state’s electricity grid, to administer power outages to prevent a grid outage. ERCOT put an end to the emergency conditions on Friday because no further breakdown was necessary.

ERCOT operations have returned to normal and we are no longer asking for energy savings. Thank you for helping the grid during this very difficult time.

– ERCOT (@ERCOT_ISO) February 19, 2021

Here’s what you need to know about power outages in Texas.

What happened to power in Texas?

Last weekend, a winter storm hit Texas, bringing freezing cold to the state. As temperatures began to dip into their teens on Monday morning, generators at power plants across the state began to freeze and go offline, causing energy production to drop significantly. At the same time, the demand for electricity increased as people turned up the thermostat.

Almost 50% of the electricity produced by Texas comes from natural gas, the other half being split between coal, wind, nuclear and solar. Due to the cold, however, gas cannot even pass from the ground through the pipes. ERCOT says 46,000 megawatts were offline as of Wednesday. One megawatt is enough to power around 200 homes per year. There are 70 to 80 power stations offline on Wednesday, out of 680 statewide. Thermal energy – natural gas, coal and nuclear – accounted for 28,000 of these megawatts, while wind and solar made up the remaining 16,000.

“The ability of gas generators to produce, especially at full power, has been affected by the impact of the freeze on the natural gas supply,” Bill Magness, President and CEO of ERCOT, said at a livestream Wednesday. “So getting those resources back is the central solution to giving people back their power.”

About 40% of the generators went offline due to cold weather. The significant drop in power generated led to statewide power outages as the ERCOT attempted to maintain a balance between supply and demand in order to avoid a “catastrophic” power outage. This made the outage last much longer than ERCOT expected.

On preparing power plants for extreme cold to keep generators from freezing, Dan Woodfin, senior director of system operations for ERCOT, says national standards are under consideration, but are not. still mandatory.

“These are voluntary guidelines for individual production companies to decide to do these things,” Woodfin said. “They have financial incentives to be able to participate in the market to follow these [regulations] and stay online, but there are no regulations at this time. ”

He went on to explain that in northern states, generators are usually located in buildings, which protects them in the winter. Texas, however, keeps generators outside for full use during the summer months when energy demand is high and more homes are using air conditioning. Having these generators indoors would cause the heat to increase and prevent them from being used to their full capacity. According to Woodfin, there are best practices for keeping generators online in cold weather, but these weren’t enough with the extremely low temperatures.

Texas has its own independent power grid and is not connected to the East and West interconnection networks covering the rest of the country. The state can draw electricity from neighboring states and Mexico, but the amount available is limited. The fact that neighboring states need all of their electricity to meet demand hasn’t helped either.

Audio from a February 9 meeting of ERCOT officials suggested that they may not have taken the winter storm as seriously as they could have, local media KSAT-12 reported on Friday. . During the two-hour and 28-minute meeting, the next winter storm was discussed for less than 40 seconds, KSAT-12 said. ERCOT CEO Bill Magness responded by telling the point of sale, “I think that was the first thing I mentioned when I started briefing the board … there was definitely a lot communications from us, and if what I said indicated that we weren’t concerned, I was just trying to let the board know that this is something we need to watch because it affects us . “

What’s wrong with people blaming wind and solar?

Confusion over the cause of the power outages began to spread on social media on Tuesday, particularly from state government officials.

“The reason for the blackouts is complex, but in short: Texas has learned too many lessons from Cali, over-subsidized renewables and kicked out staple energy like natural gas,” Republican Dan said. Crenshaw, Republican of Texas, tweeted Tuesday.

A similar sentiment came from Ronny Jackson, another representative of the GOP Texas, who said on Facebook Tuesday: “Our reliance on renewables needs to be reviewed IMMEDIATELY.”

But on Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, also a Republican, pointed out that the natural gas freeze was part of the problem.

“The reason electricity is not available to your viewers is that the electricity generators froze and their equipment was unable to generate electricity. Then, on top of that, the natural gas that s ‘flows in these generators of electricity, which is also frozen, “Abbott told ABC-13 of Houston.

On Tuesday night, however, Abbott appeared on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News and gave a different explanation for what happened.

“Our wind and solar power were shut down, and they collectively make up 10% of our electricity grid, and that put Texas in a state of statewide power shortage,” he said. he declared to Hannity. “As a result, this shows that fossil fuels are necessary for the state of Texas.”

However, according to ERCOT officials, the majority of the energy lost came from thermal energy, which is mainly natural gas, not wind or solar energy.

“At 9 a.m.,” the organization said in a press release on Wednesday, “approximately 46,000 MW of generation was drained from the system during this extreme winter weather event. Of that number, 28,000 MW is thermal and 18,000 MW wind and solar. ”

Abbott appeared to revisit his comments on Wednesday at a press conference in Austin.

“I was asked a question on a TV show about renewable energy, and I answered that question,” Abbott said. “Every energy source that the state of Texas has been compromised.”

When will the power come back?

On Wednesday, ERCOT did not provide a specific time when power would be restored, but indicated the best case scenario was Thursday morning. On Thursday, he said a majority of customers had turned their lights back on and the network was going strong. Normal conditions were restored on Friday.