Electric utilities work to restore power after unprecedented winter weather

Electric utilities in Texas, and beyond, were working around the clock to secure the grid after historically frigid weather threw a wrench into system operations this week, leaving millions without power.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages the flow of electric power to more than 26 million Texas customers, had called for controlled power outages on Monday to protect the electric grid from cascading outages when electric demand due to the extreme temperatures exceeded the available supply. Approximately 34,000 megawatts (MW) of generation was forced off the system during that event.

ERCOT said it is restoring load as fast as it can in a stable manner. “Generating units across fuel types continue to struggle with frigid temperatures,” ERCOT tweeted Tuesday afternoon.

Entergy Texas, a company that provides electricity to approximately 461,000 customers in 27 counties, said on Tuesday that its reliability coordinator, Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), cancelled its order for power outages in its region. MISO had directed the company early Monday morning to initiate power outages as a last resort. Since then, the company was able to bring generating units impacted by the severe weather back online and was cleared by MISO to begin fully serving the record-breaking load across southeast Texas.

“We know how challenging these past couple of days have been for our customers and communities,” said Sallie Rainer, Entergy Texas president and CEO. “Our crews have made incredible progress to return several of our power plants to service which allows us to meet customer demand at this time. However, we are closely watching and preparing for additional winter weather tonight that will impact our service area.”

Getting power flowing again was presenting challenges.

CenterPoint Energy, an electric transmission and delivery company serving the Greater Houston area, noted that because the state’s current power generation has fallen short of demand, the outages across Texas are lasting longer than previously planned. CenterPoint Energy depends on electricity that is provided by third-party electricity generators and received through ERCOT.

“We are ready to restore power as soon as it is available to be delivered; however, there is not enough electricity from third-party generators,” said Dave Lesar, president and CEO of CenterPoint Energy. “CenterPoint Energy continues to communicate with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and other stakeholders on the power shortage, but we have no control over the generators’ ability to provide power, nor are we able to predict when they will resume their generation. As soon as power is delivered to us, we will be ready to begin to deliver that power to our customers.”

Austin Energy, the city of Austin’s community-owned electric utility, instituted outages starting Monday morning and noted that they were “more extensive than anyone expected.” An Austin Energy spokesperson cautioned customers that when power is restored, circuits left on earlier in the day can become overloaded, a problem called “cold load pickup” which can cause a second outage. On Tuesday afternoon the utility said customers should be prepared to not have power through Tuesday night and possibly longer.

Meanwhile, the Southwest Power Pool, which oversees the bulk electric grid and wholesale power market in the central United States declared an Energy Emergency Alert Level 3 for its entire 14-state balancing authority area on Tuesday. That alert means that SPP, and its member utilities, move to a last resort: “controlled interruptions” of service and customers are advised to prepare. SPP’s move shows how far the chaos has spread beyond Texas.

Balancing authorities are the critical players responsible for maintaining generation and load. SPP said that within its balancing area, “system-wide generating capacity has dropped below our current load of approximately 42 gigawatts (GW) due to extremely low temperatures and inadequate supplies of natural gas.”

The widespread power outages underscored the need for securing the reliability of the electric grid.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) announced plans in the days ahead to open a joint inquiry into the operations of the bulk-power system during the extreme winter weather. This will be an inclusive review. FERC wants participation with other federal agencies, states, regional entities and utilities to identify problems and solutions.

Another critical oversight body is the Texas Reliability Entity Inc. (TexasRE) which is NERC’s official regional entity overseeing reliability issues. TexasRE has enforcement powers and can take action if it’s subsequently determined that system participants did not adhere to agreed-to reliability standards.

Regulators and industry officials are also expected to come under scrutiny by Texas lawmakers. Texas Gov. Greg Abbot has issued an executive order for emergency legislative attention on the power failures. In addition, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan tweeted that he has asked the House State Affairs and Energy Resources Committees to convene a joint hearing on Feb. 25. “Texans look forward to hearing some answers,” Phelan said.