Austin News

Texans continue to point the finger at various parties to shift the blame for blackouts across the state, including at Gov. Greg Abbott’s efforts or lack thereof to strengthen the state’s power grid.

“It’s Day Two of conservation warnings from @GregAbbott_TX delicate power infrastructure,” Austin Mayor Steve Adler tweeted. “It’s still technically spring and Texas is experiencing late-summer temperatures, power plants offline, and the governor is tweeting about a border wall that he can’t fund.”

Bill Peacock, Policy Director of The Energy Alliance, has determined the cause of unreliable power grids to be the region’s dependence on the weather for power. Sources have become vulnerable through a combination of small mechanical problems and extreme weather changes, causing an inability for wind- and solar-power sources to generate electricity. 

The effects the weather has had on the power grids, serving as the primary culprits, were noted early on after wind generation declined significantly and investors began transitioning from traditional, natural gas generation to renewable energy alternatives, posing risks for the potential power loss in the summertime.

The Houston Chronicle reports that ERCOT's call for conservation when wind generation shut down is a clear indication that the Texas Legislature did not address the primary cause of the Texas blackouts earlier this year: Texas' growing reliance on renewable energy, as suggested by Abbott's statement on the topic.

"Bottom line is that everything that needed to be done was done to fix the power grid in Texas," the governor said.

In an effort to resolve the issue, the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce wrote a letter that included the following warning:

"Monday’s warnings from ERCOT for customers to conserve energy reinforced that there is still work to be done before our state’s grid reaches an acceptable level of reliability."

The shortage has led agencies to request billions of dollars of additional subsidies for generators through a capacity market. 

"Probably the best thing to do is to create a capacity market with real penalties for not generating," Charles Blanchard, head of natural gas research at the commodities trading firm Mercuria Energy America, said. 

Texas legislators filed bills during the recent session to create a capacity market in Texas and properly regulate generation capacity. However, all that capacity markets usually ensure is that generators are paid separately for their labor to build capacity and generate power. 

"This means that consumers pay for it in addition to their monthly electricity use,"Energy Alliance Policy Analyst Kathleen Hunker explained. "It also means that generators get these payments regardless of how much electricity they actually produce and sell."

Surveys indicate that the average U.S. capacity market operates in a more reliable form than the Texas market through the use of rolling blackouts as proved by the PJM capacity market, which serves many mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states. According to Peacock, further prevention measures include the reduction of the state’s dependability on renewable sources by doing away with state and local renewable subsidies and investing in renewable generators. 

“We are at a higher risk of blackouts than we have ever been,” Peacock said. “If the winter blackouts taught us anything, it is that we can expect problems with the Texas grid at any time. [Monday]'s call for conservation is just a reminder of the precarious situation we are in. We shouldn't be surprised if we see more calls to conserve electricity – or even blackouts. It will really depend on the weather.”