Texas was ‘seconds and minutes’ from ‘months’ power cuts, said ERCOT’s CEO on Thursday, while defending the network’s ongoing blackouts.
A week of sub-zero temperatures brought down about a third of the state’s generation capacity offline, resulting in the largest forced blackout in US history and exposing the weaknesses of Texas’s unique approach to grid management.
The Texas Electric Reliability Council, or ERCOT, operates the power grid that covers most of the state and was behind the decision to have blackouts that left up to 4 million people experiencing disruptions in sub-zero temperatures.
Its CEO, Bill Magness, told The Texas Tribune on Thursday that if operators had not acted “immediately” by implementing them on Monday morning, the state would have faced an “indefinitely long” electricity crisis.
He said: ‘It was seconds and minutes [from possible failure] given the amount of generation that was leaving the system. ‘
Texas was ‘seconds and minutes’ from ‘months’ power outage Bill Magness, pictured, said ERCOT CEO on Thursday while defending the network’s ongoing blackouts
A week of sub-zero temperatures brought down about a third of the state’s offline generation capacity, resulting in the largest forced blackout in United States history and exposing the weaknesses of Texas’s unique approach to grid management. Texas cities are portrayed on January 31 with energy and on February 16 without
Energy officials have seen huge amounts of supply falling from the grid as temperatures have dropped enough to freeze natural gas supply lines and prevent wind turbines from turning.
The high temperatures also caused Texans to turn on their heaters, including many inefficient trams. Demand has reached levels normally seen only on the hottest summer days, when millions of air conditioners operate at full throttle.
Magness added: ‘What happens in the next minute could be that three more [power generation] the units go offline and you sink. ‘
Houston, Texas: Donated water is distributed to residents, Thursday. A water crisis was also unfolding after Texas officials ordered 7 million people to boil tap water before drinking it
Houston, Texas :: A person carries empty propane tanks on Thursday, taking them to refuel at a gas station after the winter has caused electricity blackouts
The Texans were on Thursday beginning to see energy restored.
But the storm left at least 15 people dead across the state; In the Houston area, a family died of carbon monoxide when the car stopped in the garage.
A 75-year-old woman and her three grandchildren died in a fire that authorities said may have been caused by a fireplace they were using.
And Republican Governor Greg Abbott accused ERCOT of deceiving the public with messages that the network was ready for the storm.
Furious Texans are also demanding responses after energy producers were warned that their equipment would not withstand a cold snap.
After the last major state freeze, during the 2011 Super Bowl, held in Arlington, Texas, a federal analysis concluded that energy producers’ procedures for preparing their equipment for winter ‘were inadequate or were not followed properly’ in many cases.
Wylie, Texas: Residents displaced by this week’s harsh winter weather take shelter in a school
Austin, Texas: The buyer passes an empty shelf while people stock up on their needs at the HEB supermarket on Thursday. The winter storm Uri brought historic cold weather and power cuts to Texas as storms hit 26 states
Killeen, Texas: Vehicles stopped south on Interstate 35 on Thursday
Defending the network, Bernadette Johnson, senior vice president of energy and renewable energy at Enverus, told The Tribune: ‘As chaotic as it was, the entire network could be in a blackout. ERCOT is getting very hot, but the fact that it was not worse is because of those network operators.
“The operators who took these measures to prevent a catastrophic blackout and much worse damage to our system, this was, I would say, the most difficult decision that had to be made during the entire event.”
But Ed Hirs, an energy scholar at the University of Houston, dismissed ERCOT’s claim that this week’s freeze was unpredictable. “This is absurd,” he said. “Every eight to ten years, we have really bad winters. This is not a surprise. ‘
Texas has a network largely disconnected from others to avoid federal regulation.
This means that it is not linked to other states and therefore cannot borrow energy from them, a system that the state has implemented to avoid federal regulation.
The single system, which avoids regulation in favor of market incentives, is now facing negative reactions for allowing power generators to avoid preparations for a winter storm that occurs once every decade.
Continuous blackouts are usually triggered when reserves fall below a certain level.
Network operators say continuous blackouts are the last resort when energy demand overwhelms supply and threatens to create a broader collapse of the entire energy system.
ERCOT operates the power grid that covers most of the state and was behind the decision to have continuous blackouts that left up to 4 million people experiencing disruptions in sub-zero temperatures. Houston is depicted from space during blackouts
Public utilities typically block certain blocks or zones before cutting power to another area, then to another. Often, areas with hospitals, fire departments, water treatment plants and other important facilities are spared.
With blackouts, no neighborhood should go through an unfairly long period without power, but it wasn’t always the case this week in Texas.
Some areas never lost energy, while others were blacked out for 12 hours or more as temperatures dropped to single digits.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Texas woke up on Thursday to the fourth day without power.
A water crisis was also unfolding after Texas officials ordered 7 million people to boil tap water before drinking it.
The latest meltdown has sparked growing outrage and demands for answers about how Texas – whose Republican leaders last year mocked California over the Democratic-led state’s continued blackouts – failed such a massive test of an important point of state pride: energy independence.