Texas was’ seconds and minutes away from ‘month-long’ power outages, the ERCOT’s advanced chief executive said Thursday as he defended the network’s power outage.
A week from below freezing dropped about a third of the state’s generating capacity offline, leading to the largest forced disappearance in U.S. history and exposing the weaknesses of Texas’ unique approach to power grid management.
The Electric Reliability Board of Texas, or ERCOT, operates the power grid that covers most of the state and was behind the decision to cause a power outage that left up to 4 million people in intermittent temperatures.
CEO Bill Magness told The Texas Tribune on Thursday that if the operators had not acted ‘immediately’ in its implementation, the state would have faced an ‘indefinitely long’ electricity crisis.
He said: ‘It was seconds and minutes [from possible failure] given the amount of generation coming from the system. ‘
Texas was “seconds and minutes away from” months-long “power outages, Bill Magness, pictured, ERCOT CEO said Thursday as he defended the network’s power outages.
A week below freezing knocked off about a third of the state’s generating capacity offline, leading to the largest forced eclipse in U.S. history and exposing the weaknesses of Texas’ unique approach to power network management. Cities in Texas are pictured with power on January 31 and then without power on February 16
The energy officers saw how large amounts of supply from the network fell off when the temperature was cold enough to freeze the supply lines of natural gas and prevent wind turbines from turning.
Falling temperatures have also caused Texans to turn on their heaters, including very inefficient electricity. Demand has risen to levels usually only seen on the hottest summer days, when millions of air conditioners are running at full tilt.
Magness added: ‘What happens next minute could be three more [power generation] units come offline, and then you are sunk. ‘
Houston, Texas: Donation water will be distributed to residents Thursday. A water crisis was also getting underway after Texas officials ordered 7 million people to boil tap water before drinking it
Houston, Texas :: A person carries empty propane tanks on Thursday and brings them back to a propane gas station after the winter weather caused the electricity to weaken.
Texans began seeing the power recover on Thursday.
But the storm killed at least 15 people across the country; In the Houston area, one family died of carbon monoxide when their car drove into their garage.
A 75-year-old woman and her three grandchildren were killed in a fire caused by a fireplace they used, according to authorities.
And Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has accused ERCOT of misleading the public with messages that the network was ready for the storm.
Angry Texans are also demanding answers after it emerged that energy producers had been warned that their equipment could not withstand such a cold moment.
After the state’s last freeze, during the 2011 Super Bowl in Arlington, Texas, a federal analysis found that the procedures of energy producers to winter their equipment were ‘inadequate or in many cases not adequately followed’.
Wylie, Texas: Residents displaced by this week’s severe winter weather hide in a school
Austin, Texas: shopper walks past a bare shelf while people pick up supplies at the grocery store on Thursday. The hurricane Uri brought historic cold weather and power outages to Texas as storms swept across 26 states
Killeen, Texas: On Thursday, vehicles stopped southbound on Interstate Highway 35
Bernadette Johnson, senior vice president of power and renewable energy at Enverus, defending the network, told The Tribune: ‘No matter how chaotic it was, the entire network could have been blacked out. ERCOT gets a lot of heat, but the fact that it was not worse is due to the network operators.
“The operators who took these steps to prevent a catastrophic eclipse and much worse damage to our system were, I would say, the most difficult decision that had to be made during the entire event.”
But Ed Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston, rejected ERCOT’s claim that the freezing point this week was unpredictable. “This is nonsense,” he said. ‘Every eight to ten years we have very bad winters. This is not a surprise. ‘
Texas has a network that is largely disconnected from others to avoid federal regulations.
This means that it is not linked to other states and therefore cannot borrow power from them, a system that the state has implemented to avoid federal regulation.
The unique system, which avoids regulation in favor of market incentives, is now confronted by the generators to avoid the preparations for a one-off winter storm.
Rollovers are usually caused when reserves fall below a certain level.
Net operators say the outflow of electricity is a last resort if demand for power overwhelms supply and threatens to create a wider collapse of the entire power system.
ERCOT operates the power grid that covers most of the state, and was behind the decision to undergo interruptions, which interrupted up to four million people in freezing temperatures. Houston is pictured from space during the eclipses
Usually utilities obscure certain blocks or zones before turning off the power to another area, then another. Areas with hospitals, fire stations, water treatment plants and other important facilities are often spared.
By deploying the eclipse, it’s not supposed to leave any neighborhoods unfairly long without power, but that was not always the case this week in Texas.
Some areas never lost power, while others were darkened for 12 hours or longer because the temperature dropped in the single digits.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Texas woke up Thursday to a fourth day without power.
A water crisis was also getting underway after officials in Texas ordered 7 million people to boil tap water before drinking it.
The latest outburst has sparked growing outrage and demands for answers on how Texas – whose Republican leaders plagued California as recently as last year over the disappearance of the Democratic-led state – such a massive test of a key point of state pride: energy -independence, failed.