A new report shows Texas's power grid isn't prepared for another bad winter.

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

Julián Castro
@JulianCastro
A new report shows Texas’s power grid isn’t prepared for another bad winter.

Greg Abbott collected millions from oil and gas lobbyists, passed a toothless energy bill, and left our state vulnerable to another disaster.

An ERCOT control room. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) manages the flow of electric power to more than 26 million Texas customers -- representing about 90 percent of the state’s electric load.

ERCOT report says Texans face steep shortfalls in power capacity if extreme event hits this winter
AUSTIN — Texas’ grid operator on Friday released its predictions for peak electricity use in Texas for this winter that showed steep shortfalls in power...
dallasnews.com
9:25 PM · Nov 22, 2021

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2021/11/19/ercot-report-says-texans-face-steep-shortfalls-in-power-capacity-if-extreme-event-hits-this-winter/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/Gr90U

AUSTIN — Texas’ grid operator on Friday released its predictions for peak electricity use in Texas for this winter that showed steep shortfalls in power capacity in an extreme event, despite not accounting for February’s deadly freeze.

ERCOT’s power demand projection known as the Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy was already facing criticism for using data that did not account for climate change and did not take into account weather and outage data from February’s deadly winter storm.

The main failure of the report, according to Texas A&M University professor Andrew Dessler, is that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas based projections of extreme demand on the 2011 winter event that left wide swaths of North Texas without power. Dessler, an atmospheric sciences professor, said the report shows that Texans have around a one-in-10 chance of seeing weather-related power outages this winter.

“One in 10 years seems to me to be not a great worst-case scenario,” Dessler said. “That means that there’s a 10% chance we’re going to do worse than that.”

The peak amount of electricity in the 2011 event was far below projections made for February’s winter storm. But even with a lower benchmark than what Texans saw just nine months ago, ERCOT predicted that any scenario with electric usage on par with the 2011 event coupled with widespread plant outages would cause blackouts.

*snip*

[dflprincess]

1. I wonder if Cruz has made his reservations for Cancun. Nt

[Texasgal]

2. I still have nightmares

about freezing and being without power for five days... followed by no water for another four days.

This cannot happen again!

[walkingman]

5. Same here - we found out quickly how little water comes from a 5 gal bucket of snow. I

also had extensive plumbing and well damage. Not only did we not have electricity but our water provider (like most others) had no kind of emergency backup generators - portable or permanent.

The infrastructure of Texas is very, very bad and I see no indication that it is being fixed. I just hope that the monies from the Infrastructure Bill is not handed to the States for them to distribute.

These sorry Texas politicians need to go.

[SoCalDavidS]

3. It's Almost Like They Don't Care

And like they feel they can't lose. Abbott must not be worried, and they figure if some people freeze to death, it's not going to lose them votes. He's already let 74,000 Die from Covid in less than 2 years.

[czarjak]

4. Rest assured...

A privileged few benefited mightily though. THAT, Greg can tell you. Believe me.

[Sogo]

6. Beto needs to make this issue a central one.

Who in Texas could disagree?