- A rare winter storm hit Texas, resulting in massive power cuts across the state.
- But the entity operating the state grid said the blackouts could have been much worse.
- If network operators had not acted quickly, parts of the state could have been without power for months.
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The blackouts that left millions of Texans without power or heat after a rare winter storm this week could have been much, much worse, officials said.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages 75% of the state’s unregulated electricity market, said on Thursday that blackouts were implemented to prevent catastrophic and uncontrolled blackouts that could have persisted for months, according to the Texas Tribune.
The outlet reported that the state power grid was “seconds and minutes away” from the worst case scenario.
According to the Tribune, authorities said that on Monday morning, network operators noticed warning signs that large amounts of energy supply had started to fall, prompting them to make a quick decision to implement continuous blackouts such as precautionary measure.
Exceptionally cold temperatures in the region have rendered the sources of leakage inoperative, the newspaper said, causing the grid’s power supply to drop as consumers began to increase heating to withstand the unusual cold.
The icy weather caused an unprecedented heat demand – the need was greater for the state’s ability to supply it. Texas is the only state in the contiguous states to have its own power grid.
“What we have to do to protect reliability is to make sure that there is no catastrophic blackout – to make sure that we don’t get into a situation where we are starting the grid from scratch and the power can be without power for an indefinite period,” Bill Magness , president and CEO of ERCOT, said in a press release, reported by BuzzFeed News. “This is the disaster scenario that our core job must be avoided.”
Magness reportedly answered a question on the call about how close the state came to this disaster scenario and said “it was seconds and minutes.”
If network operators had waited to cut the amount of energy distributed when they saw the drop, it could have resulted in “indeterminately long” blackouts across the state for months, said Magness.
At worst, if the network had gone completely offline, the equipment could have caught fire, power lines could have fallen and damage to the power infrastructure could take months to repair, the Tribune reported.
“As chaotic as it was, the entire network could be blacked out,” Bernadette Johnson, senior vice president for energy and renewable energy at Enverus, an Austin-based oil and gas software and information company, told the newspaper . “ERCOT is getting a lot of heat, but the fact that it was not worse is because of the network operators.”
An ERCOT spokesman told the Tribune that nine network operators are working at any time to make these decisions.
“Ultimately, our operators are highly trained and have the authority to make decisions that protect the reliability of the electrical system,” said the spokesman in a note to the outlet.
The near accident is yet another sign that the state was neither prepared nor equipped to deal with such a storm.
Although a catastrophe has been averted, continued power outages and food and water shortages have damaged the state as another winter wave hits the region. Hundreds of thousands remain without power on Thursday night.
ERCOT told the Tribune that “some level of rotational outages” may be needed for a few days in order to keep the network stable.