Why are millions of Americans days in the country with the most energy energy without power and heat amid extreme winter weather? “The people who are short on power are the private power generation companies,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott explained. Oh, yes, blame private power companies. . . which is regulated by the government.
The Republican sounds like California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who melted down private electricity services last summer because of a heat wave. Power grids must be able to withstand extreme weather. But in both of these twelve states, state and federal energy policies have distorted the market and reduced the reliability of the grid.
Mr. Abbott blames the extensive power outages of his state on generators that froze early Monday morning, noting ‘this includes the natural gas and coal generators.’ But icy temperatures and icy conditions have dropped in most of the country. Why could Texas not handle it while other states did?
The problem is the excessive reliance in Texas on wind power that has left the network more vulnerable to bad weather. Half of the wind turbines froze last week, dropping the share of electricity from the wind to 42% from 42%. Power prices in the wholesale market have risen, and regulators of the network warned on Friday that the power would be cut off. Natural gas and coal generators increased to cover the supply gap, but could not meet the rising demand for electricity – which half of households rely on for heating – even though many families powered their gas furnaces. Then some gas sources and pipelines froze.
In short, there was not enough base power of coal and nuclear power to support the network. Baseload is needed to stabilize the frequency of the network amid changes in supply and demand. If there is not enough base power, the network becomes unbalanced and power sources can fail. The more the network depends on volatile renewable energy such as wind and solar power, the more basic power is needed to back it up.