The Electric Reliability Council of Texas is not up to its billing.
Although the warning signs date back to a decade, America’s only independent electrical service was not prepared for the cold Arctic winter storm that wiped out the Lone Star State this week.
Homeowners across Texas simultaneously increased heating to stay warm, creating a demand for energy that exceeded the mains supply and resulting in millions of blackouts.
Texans were subjected to record temperatures, left to wrap themselves in blankets and burn firewood to avoid extreme cold and boil water and, in some cases, snow, to hydrate.
As of Friday morning, 200,000 people were still without electricity and electricity and millions did not have adequate drinking water.
At least 37 people died from widespread weather-related fatalities, mostly in Texas.
The electricity loan from other states would have accelerated the end of the energy crisis.
Now comes the point – Texas has always wanted to be alone.
The power grid system is divided into three parts in the continental United States: Western Interconnection, Eastern Interconnection and ERCOT.
Those covering the western and eastern United States connect local networks in those states, allowing them to operate independently and also exchange energy with each other.
ERCOT supplies only 90% of Texas, a state with 29 million residents.
“The independence of the network is good and bad. This gives us the freedom to make decisions based on how we want to do it, ”said Michael Webber, professor of energy at the University of Texas at Austin. “But it is also bad when things get tough and we cannot count on the help of our neighbors. And that is what we are suffering now. “
Texas found its way to electrical and energy independence in the late 1800s, when utilities formed mainly to generate electricity to power compressors for ice sheets, according to a promotional video on the ERCOT website that documents its history.
“They kind of started selling excess electricity from the ice making process to companies and people around the ice making plants,” said Kent Saathoff, former vice president of network operations and systems planning, at ERCOT video, adding that electricity utilities gradually began to grow.
The idea of energy independence started in World War II because there was a need for more energy along the Gulf Coast, according to the ERCOT video.
Thereafter, separate concessionaires across the state came together and increased their interconnection so that excess generation in central and northern Texas could be brought to the Gulf coast.
Also helping the cause was the approval of the Federal Energy Law to regulate interstate electricity activities in 1935.
The law gave the federal government the authority to regulate energy companies involved in interstate commerce. In response, several Texas utilities have pledged never to allow energy outside the state, thereby avoiding federal regulation.
“Texas utility companies were smart and got together and made a deal,” said Donna L. Nelson, then chairman of the Texas Utilities Commission, in the ERCOT video.
That decision, decades ago, left Texas alone to deal with its current energy crisis, as it cannot borrow energy from Regional Transmission Organizations, of which 48 states obtain electricity.
In Texas, extreme weather disrupted water services for more than 12 million residents, forcing many of the more than 680 water systems across the state to issue boiling water warnings.
“If the majority of Texas doesn’t know anything about ERCOT, that’s very good because it means people are doing their job perfectly,” said Nelson in the ERCOT video long before the crisis.
This turned out not to be the case.
As an independent system operator, the Texas power grid is a network of nearly 46,500 miles of transmission lines that bring electricity to utilities for distribution.
The network can generate 82,000 megawatts of electricity, reaching more than 26 million consumers.
Federal regulators warned ERCOT a decade ago that its power grid was vulnerable after a 2011 blackout caused by similar extreme cold conditions, although it was not necessary to comply with the recommendations.
ERCOT, a nonprofit organization subject to the supervision of the Texas Public Utility Commission and the Texas Legislature, was founded five years after a major power outage left millions in the dark for hours in the northeast in 1965.
The unavailability led to a change in national policy leading to the formation of reliability councils across the country to improve operational and planning practices, according to the video on the ERCOT website.
In Texas, ERCOT became the nation’s first independent electrical system operator.
Since then, the organization has invested in renewable energy and other innovations, its supporters said in the documentary.
But his main duty remains what has failed this month.
“The most important job that ERCOT does is to combine the electricity supply and the demand at every moment to ensure that the stability of the network is not affected and that everyone’s lights remain on,” Nelson said in the documentary.
The White House said this week that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has supplied generators to Texas and is preparing to move diesel to the state to ensure the availability of backup power for critical infrastructure, including hospitals, NBC News reported.
Moving forward, Webber said that some solutions for Texas are to invest in power supplies and interconnections with other states.
“But they are not going to happen on their own and we should not pretend that it is not a possibility,” said Webber, whose Austin home ran out of power during the blackout.
He said he predicted another power outage if nothing was done.
“For sure (this) will happen again in the future,” said Webber. “It has happened before and it will happen again.”