ERCOT board discusses record-breaking summer, plans for winter season

The colder temperatures are a reminder that winter is coming.

On Tuesday, the agency that manages the state's electric grid came together to talk about it and so much more. After a record-breaking summer, there will be much to prepare the grid for ahead of the winter.

ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas told the organization's board the Public Utilities Commission they have sent out a request to purchase enough back-up power for 600,000 homes an hour (3,000 megawatts per hour). They hope to have this deal completed by December when winter cold brings power complications.

In short, the amount of power generated in Texas is not keeping up with the state's population and industrial growth, per Vegas.

"To build a power plant, you start the concept today and in two to four to five years depending on the type of power plant you'll have something come online," he said.

The types of power planted needed, per Vegas, are known as dispatchable power, the more traditional power plants like natural gas plants that can be turned on by humans and do not rely on the sun or the wind. Voters will weigh in this November on whether the state should put $10 billion towards encouraging plant construction.

@It signals to the market and to the public that we have a potential problem this winter because the market has not provided the level of dispatchable resources that Texas needs," said ERCOT Board member Bill Flores.

In the summer, the power grid's most vulnerable time is when Texans return home from work and begin using their appliances, around 7 or 8 pm. In the winter, the grid will be most vulnerable in the mid-morning when it's still dark outside - eliminating solar power as a resource - and Texans are beginning to wake up to use energy before they go to work.

According to an ERCOT analysis, they predict this December there's a 4.3% chance of a controlled power outage every day around 8 AM. That chance goes up to 14.4% if there are similar conditions to last year's December cold snap.

While the summer might feel like a distant memory, just a little over a month ago the metroplex was pushing 110 degrees in early September.

"What comes out of that, the board meeting – they'll do a postmortem so to speak on this past summer. And in April, when they get to prepare this plan for next summer, they will probably consider, what if we have another one of these same summers like 2023 and how will we manage it?" said Tom Seng, Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in Energy at the Ralph Lowe Energy Institute, part of the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University.

What made this summer even more difficult was how long this intense heat lasted. There was a rare moment of multiple alerts issued the week of September 6, as triple digits gripped the state during a time when things should've started cooling off toward the fall.

It led to a very close call on the grid when demand was so high but wind and solar weren't enough to keep the grid in a good place after the sun set that day. The alert was the first of its kind since 2021.

“Our grid is not the grid we had in the past. And we are going to have new challenges. These new challenges are a part of having different kinds of resources that behave in different ways. Our procedures and processes will need constant tune-ups,” said ERCOT COO Woody Rickerson shortly after the alert.

ERCOT also admitted that the state has a transmission issue in moving power where it needs to be and that also contributed to the problem. The organization says it is taking a close look at the issue and will provide a full report to the Public Utilities Commission, which has kept a close watch on ERCOT since the 2021 winter storm that crippled the state.

Seng said in addition to the extreme heat this summer, the duration of the heat into the fall season also put a delay on crucial maintenance that power plants have needed after running 24/7 all summer.

"There's this situation where you could have expected some relief, where some of these generating power plants could basically be idled or taken offline to look and do periodic maintenance – that definitely was put off. So we'll probably see some of that soon,” he said.

Seng added that the winter season is a different beast compared to summer. While we use more electricity to cool homes in summer, the grid shifts more toward natural gas to heat homes. That’s why natural gas data is important to keep an eye on ahead of and during the season, which Seng said is in good shape nationally and across Texas.

“We look at the country's reserves of natural gas that are being stored just like the squirrels putting away nuts for the winter time. We're stacking up natural gas in the ground so that we have that for home heating and power generation. And we're in a really good situation there,” he said.

Looking ahead, Seng said the El Nino weather pattern should help to ease the strain on the grid.

"There is an El Nino effect going on right now coming off the Pacific – what that tends to do though, at least for us in Texas, it should be a more mild winter, potentially more rain – whereas north of us, it's going to be drier,” he said. “Normally this El Nino pattern that's developed where we are, it should be more mild here with warmer temperatures and more moisture across the season."

The cloud cover could impact the solar generation in the state, which ERCOT said the grid has become more reliant on than in the past. Solar helped get the state through high-demand days this summer but it might not be as helpful this winter, which is why natural gas storage and completed plant maintenance in time for winter is key.

Though some new plants are in the pipeline, they’re not set to come online for a year or more. BP has also invested in a large solar project that is being built over the next year.

Seng has also observed that solar power has grown significantly in Texas -- a large portion of it coming from homes that have decided to switch to using solar panels.

"One of the things I looked at was between May of 2022 and May of 2023 solar power in the state of Texas grew by 3,000 megawatts. Just for perspective, a new natural gas-fired power plant can generate 500 megawatts," he said. "So essentially the the solar power added represented about six power plants that would have needed to be built. And I think part of the great part of that is about 700 megawatts of that was an increase in residential solar."

Still, experts are hoping the Texas weather doesn’t throw a curveball this winter as it often does – or as it did in February 2021.

"I think overall, we're not going to see power loads like we saw this summer over the winter, it's just not the time frame when we use electricity the most,” said Seng. “From that perspective, I think we're going to be in really good shape again – barring some freak winter situation again like Winter Storm Yuri."

Click here to watch the board meeting of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.