AUSTIN, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) Oncor Electric Delivery CEO Allen Nye began his testimony before the State Senate on Friday, February 26, as did the CEOs of others in the energy sector.
“I want to say that I understand all the outrage and anger of all Texans.”
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New ones appeared during the second day of hearings in the Texas Capitol in which the Senate Commerce Committee and the State Affairs and Energy Committees investigated what led to last week’s widespread disruptions that led to millions of Texans losing electricity, heat and water. for days.
Nye testified that when the first winter storm blew across Texas overnight on Feb. 15, the state’s electrical network operator, ERCOT, repeatedly ordered them to turn off power to more of their customers to prevent a catastrophic eclipse.
“We were two / one-thousandths of 1% to drop the last security blanket this state had.”
Initially, he said their intention was to make continuous interruptions, for 15 minutes on, 30 minutes off.
But he said it was impossible because power plants continued offline and there was not enough supply to meet demand.
‘The generation has fallen so fast and we will be told that it will come back soon, and we will stay up all night waiting for it and it will never show. Or a little would, and something else would fall. I could not estimate during those periods whether the generation would return so that I could get it at your home. I had no idea. ”
Nye said Oncor needed to communicate better with customers why many of them had to stay in the dark for so long.
He also told lawmakers why the lights last for about 40% of their customers.
“If you happen to live in a feeder that also goes to a hospital or if you happen to live in a feeder that goes to a 911 call center, you are not turned on either.”
This solved about 50% of the customers power outages.
In a moment of frankness, he said he did not realize that his house was on such a feeder until he woke up with the lights on.
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He is not near any critical infrastructure, which is why he called his company to tell them to cut his power, which also affected his neighbors.
In all, Nye told lawmakers about 1.3 million customers lost their power.
Most of this was because there were not enough power stations.
Of that, he said about 140,000 customers were in the dark because Oncor’s power lines got ice during the storms.
As reported by CBS 11, natural gas processors have lost power in the field, making it impossible to supply natural gas to power stations that need fuel.
Before the House Committees on Friday, Texas Railroad Commission Chairman Christi Craddick, who oversees the gas industry, said ERCOT did not realize what was happening. “When I say that ERCOT does not have enough communication, they did not understand that they need a continuous flow of gas to be able to place gas in power plants.”
Nye said before the storm that they had identified 35 gas facilities that needed to continue receiving electricity.
But after the interruptions began, Nye said he received calls from many more. “During the event, we added 168 new gas-critical facilities. We all turned on right away and kept going the whole time. ‘
He told lawmakers that his company and other transmission owners, power plants and the gas industry should compile an updated list.
Energy experts told CBS 11 that the electrical and gas grids must be installed holistically to prevent the kind of widespread power outages that happened last week.
On Thursday, the first day of hearings, Curt Morgan, CEO of Vistra Corporation of Irving, which operates power plants, told House committees that unless the state integrated gas and power systems and seamlessly, the same problem would happen again.
Morgan recommends that a single authority oversee both systems, but this is not the case now.
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While the Railroad Commission regulates the gas industry, ERCOT oversees the electrical network and reports to the Texas Public Utility Commission.