Texas power grid holds up despite higher than anticipated demand during weekend deep freeze

The Texas power grid held up against the Arctic cold snap over the holiday weekend, though its operator significantly underestimated demand for electricity and at one point sought an emergency federal order allowing generators to bypass emission standards if necessary to run as much as possible.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which oversees the grid, received the emergency order from the U.S. Department of Energy, although it ended up not needing to invoke it.

With temperatures in the teens throughout much of the state, demand for power on the Texas grid topped 74,000 megawatts about 7:30 a.m. Friday — surpassing an ERCOT forecast in the days leading up to the freeze that weekend demand would peak at just under 70,000 megawatts Friday morning.

In addition, ERCOT issued a seasonal forecast just four weeks ago that pegged anticipated peak demand this winter "based on average weather conditions" at about 67,400 megawatts.

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“That (seasonal) forecast was completely divorced from logic and data," said Ed Hirs, an energy economics professor at the University of Houston.

He said grid regulators have been putting Texans at risk by "ignoring immediate history" in their standard forecasting models — in terms of what happened during the February 2021 grid disaster that resulted in extensive blackouts — and by not accounting more for increased demand attributable to the state's huge population growth in recent years.

“We are really fortunate that this is just really a dry cold," Hirs said of the freeze over the holiday weekend.

Texans would have been "in a rolling blackout situation" if significant precipitation had accompanied the extreme cold, he said.

ERCOT's forecast for peak demand last summer also proved too low. Despite record demand for power over the summer, the grid got through it without tipping into emergency conditions that might have prompted drastic measures, such as rolling outages.

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Peak power demand during the February 2021 winter storm has been estimated at 77,000 megawatts, although a significant portion of it was never met because of power outages. At the time, many generators — ranging from natural gas-fired plants to wind farms — were knocked offline by the days-long subfreezing temperatures and icy conditions, as was natural gas infrastructure needed to supply gas-fired plants with fuel.

ERCOT included the devastating February 2021 storm in the time frame it used to calculate its average anticipated demand for this winter. But it only considered the potential for similar conditions to actually happen in "extreme risk scenarios" it modeled, which it called improbable.

Doug Lewin, an Austin-based energy consultant, said the inaccurate forecast for power demand over the recent holiday weekend was cause for concern.

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"I still think risk of outages is low (this winter) but not as low before tonight given the huge forecast miss," Lewin said in a Twitter post early Friday. "This is all extremely frustrating and preventable," if state officials would heed warnings from federal regulators about the vulnerability of the Texas grid.

But by the most critical measure — the lack of any systemic power outages — the state power grid surmounted the significant challenge presented by the weekend deep freeze.

The cushion between generating capacity and demand didn't dip to emergency levels early Friday that might have required rolling outages, and demand waned Saturday and Sunday as temperatures climbed throughout the state. An ERCOT spokeswoman said Monday that the federal order regarding emissions was never invoked because of the lack of emergency conditions on the grid.

Gov. Greg Abbott touted the outcome, saying in a Twitter post Sunday that the "grid remains stable and reliable with plenty of extra capacity" to meet demand.

"No Texan has lost power because of any failure by the ERCOT grid," Abbott said.

In the days leading up to the weekend cold snap, Abbott and grid regulators issued assurances that the grid would hold up, saying they expected its performance to help build confidence among Texans still scarred by the memory of the February 2021 grid calamity.

The extensive blackouts during that disaster contributed to hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in property damage statewide.

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“Trust will be earned over the next few days as people see that we have ultra-cold temperatures and the grid is going to be able to perform with ease," Abbott said just before the freeze. "Trust has to be earned back over a period of time, and I think that we will show that we can earn that trust."

It remains to be seen how Texans will judge the grid's performance over the holiday weekend, given the significant whiff in terms of the forecast for power demand and the emergency request for a waiver from emission standards. ERCOT's request for the waiver was reported earlier by the Houston Chronicle.

ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas invoked the prospect of "forced power outages" in his letter Friday to the Department of Energy seeking the emergency order.

ERCOT "understands the importance of the environmental permit limits that are at issue," Vegas wrote in the letter. "However, in ERCOT’s judgment, the loss of power to homes and local businesses in the areas that may be affected by curtailments presents a far greater risk to public health and safety than the temporary exceedances of those permit limits that would be allowed under the requested order."

He said the order — which was issued at 8:30 p.m. Friday and expired at 10 a.m. Sunday — was needed as a precautionary measure because some generators "have experienced operating difficulties due to cold weather or (natural gas) curtailments."

Regardless, Hirs said ERCOT's consistently inaccurate projections for peak power demand are likely to hurt ongoing efforts to make the Texas grid more reliable.

"Hope is not a sustainable strategy for managing a grid," Hirs said.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas power grid holds up despite ERCOT's underestimate on demand