DAVID BLACKMON: Will Texas Grid Survive Looming Winter Storm?

Can the Texas power grid hold up to another major winter storm? Grid managers at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) assured the public on Monday that they were ready, but Texans like yours truly who suffered through days of blackouts during 2021’s Winter Storm Uri can hardly be blamed for holding our doubts.

A familiar pattern all too reminiscent of the lead-up to Uri, which encased the Lone Star State in a week-long deep freeze starting on Feb. 14, 2021, is developing in advance of the winter storm to come. Starting late last week, the forecasts for the length and severity of sub-freezing temperatures and icy conditions have grown more severe with each passing day. Similarly, a week before Uri blew in, Texans were told to expect a few days of modestly freezing weather with highs moving above the freezing mark each afternoon.

No worries, said ERCOT, the grid can handle it. That, of course, turned out not to be true. Not at all.

What Texans experienced instead was five consecutive days during which the temperature never rose above 32 degrees Fahrenheit. The state’s collection of wind and solar generation dropped off the grid first, which should have surprised no one — the only predictable thing about renewables is that they will inevitably fail when they are needed most, i.e., during times of severe weather.

Next, parts of the natural gas transmission system started to freeze up, in large part because ERCOT implemented rolling blackouts without accounting for the critical infrastructure needed to keep power plants online. As natural gas plants started falling offline, major blackouts lasting days on end resulted in more than 300 Texans losing their lives.

But now, five years later, ERCOT assures Texans that the grid really is ready this time. The agency said on Monday that it “anticipates there will be sufficient generation to meet demand this winter” ahead of the coming storm. But with the forecast growing more severe by the hour, how can they know?