Austin News

Texas lawmakers' recent response to February's widespread power outages due to the winter storm included making adjustments to the state's power grid that analysts say will begin to solve some of the problems identified by the storm, according to a Texas Tribune report.

Some critics argue, however, that the state legislature neglected to address two major issues of the blackouts, namely their aftermath and how to stop it from occurring again.

"The legislature passed bills allowing companies to securitize the debts they incurred during the blackouts," Energy Alliance Policy Director Bill Peacock told Austin News. "Which means the companies are going to be able to keep the money they earned because of the high prices, and Texas consumers are going to be stuck paying higher bills for years."

Peacock | Energy Alliance

According to Peacock, the Public Utility Commission's (PUC) decision to increase power prices to $9,000 per megawatt-hour (MWh) and hold them there for three days increased the cost of the outage by more than $16 billion. Additionally, Peacock said the legislature declined to reverse the price increase, describing the commission's decision as "without merit and likely illegal.

"Reversing the PUC's decision would not have disrupted the market," Peacock said. "In fact, it would have done the opposite. A market where regulators can step in and arbitrarily raise prices contrary to their own rules is not a market at all. Now that the legislature has affirmed the PUC's ability to do that, it is likely that investors will be even more cautious about investing in the Texas market.

According to a report by Excellent Thought, critics of Texas' electricity market blame lack of winterization for the widespread blackouts, but a larger percentage blame renewable energy. According to Peacock, the legislature also neglected to address the damage caused by renewable energy this session.

"One reason is the renewable energy lobby is powerful and well-funded," Peacock said. "Renewable subsidies in Texas have totaled $24.2 billion since 2006. The industry is willing to spend a lot of money protecting these revenue streams. But perhaps even a bigger reason is that if legislators and statewide elected officials took on renewables, they would be admitting that the blackout was really the fault of the policies they have been pushing on Texans for years."

Excellent Thought reported that approximately 89% of wind energy's capacity was down Feb. 17, at a time when demand was highest. Additionally, Excellent Thought reported that wind energy contributed only 7.2% of the energy produced at times of peak demand, while solar contributed zero megawatts and operated at 0% of capacity. 

Based on these two factors, 90% of renewable output was offline during the blackouts. The remaining 93% of energy consumption reportedly came from nuclear, natural gas and coal.