Just two months until December's arrival, ERCOT announced an effort to prevent disaster, making a proposal to its stakeholders to increase operating reserves for the winter peak load season.
“ERCOT got concerned when they ran their numbers,” said Daniel Cohan, an Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering at Rice University.
Cohan says the solar power that bolstered the grid through a record number of high-demand days this summer won't be as beneficial in winter.
Though some new plants are in the pipeline, they’re not set to come online for a year or more.
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“I don't think we're fully prepared for a repeat of winter storm Uri. We've made a lot of improvements. We've upgraded the maintenance of a number of plants. There have been steps taken to try to improve the natural gas system, but I think we are still vulnerable if we were to have an extremely deep freeze like we had in 2021,” said Cohan.
“When we get those alerts, it kind of takes me right back to that place. And there's always that fear that it'll happen again, or you know, that we're, you know, our areas not prepared to handle a situation like that still,” said Melissa Graham.
Graham’s family was among the four and a half million Texans who lost power during that 2021 storm.
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After 48 hours without heat, she said they returned to a burst pipe and a flood that required them to move out of their Rockwall home for five months.
“There’s always this lingering thought in the back of your mind that this could happen again, or you know, that you could have to relive all of the difficulties that you experienced during that time period of being out of your house of having to deal with contractors in and out to fix things,” she said.
In a release from ERCOT, President and CEO Pablo Vegas said, “Our request to procure capacity in advance of winter is part of our continued commitment to maintain grid reliability and resiliency.”
Cohan's said it will be interesting to see if it comes soon enough.
“This may give time for some utility companies to bring a couple mothballed power plants back into operation. It might mean being sure that all available resources are there, but it's very limited what you can do when it's only coming a couple of months before the winter season,” said Cohan.
