Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) asked the state legislature to investigate the Texas Electric Reliability Council (ERCOT) after the winter left millions of Texans without power.
The Texas governor issued a statement calling for reform for the network operator to be prioritized as an emergency item during the legislative session to “ensure that Texans never again experience power cuts on the scale they have seen in the past few days.”
“The Electric Reliability Council of Texas has been anything but reliable for the past 48 hours,” said Abbott in his statement. “Many Texans are without energy and heating for their homes, as our state faces freezing temperatures and a harsh winter. This is unacceptable.
“Reviewing ERCOT’s preparations and decisions is an emergency item so that we can have a complete view of what caused this problem and find long-term solutions,” he added.
ERCOT is facing a negative reaction to the management of the state’s electricity grid that, until Tuesday, left more than 4.1 million people in the state of the Solitary Star without power then it was hit by record snow and sub-zero temperatures.
The network operator has ordered energy utilities to start rotating power outages Monday morning in order to manage the high demand for electricity. On Monday night, ERCOT instructed utilities like Oncor to turn off more power instead of the expected restorations.
Oncor in a press release on Tuesday He said he was unable to turn amid many of the outages on Monday night because of “poor network conditions”, which led to “long power outages for many of our customers”.
“As soon as enough generation is available, we will return to a regular cadence of rotating outages in order to provide any temporary relief we can for those who have been without power for the longest time,” said the Oncor statement.
“At the moment, ERCOT is unable to predict when network conditions will stabilize and urges all customers to prepare for the continuation of prolonged interruptions”, the statement continues.
In a tweet on Tuesday morning, ERCOT predicted that it could get power back to “some customers” in the afternoon due to increased sources of wind and solar energy and thermal generation. But the amount of energy restored depends on “how much generation is actually able to go online”.
We should be able to restore some customers this afternoon due to the additional production of wind and solar energy and the additional thermal generation that he told us he expects to be available. However, the amount we restore will depend on how much generation is actually able to go online.
– ERCOT (@ERCOT_ISO) February 16, 2021
ERCOT makes recommendations to utilities based on the amount of energy available for safe use, and these companies make the final decision on how to handle energy, said ERCOT CEO and President Bill Magnus to NBC affiliate KXAN.
The winter storm turned deadly in Texas, with at least two dying from carbon monoxide poisoning in Houston and two other men found dead along the Houston area roads.