Long-term changes to Texas' grid still up for debate, PUC official says
A deep freeze in 1989 brought even colder temperatures to Texas than the recent winter storm, but lights stayed. What happened to make the power grid less reliable in the intervening 30 years?Public Utility Commissioner Lori Cobos on Wednesday said the first phase of shoring up the state’s electric grid to prevent blackouts like those of the deadly February 2021 winter storm has been finished.
She warned, however, that what remains is a massive undertaking: redesigning the state’s power market in a way that promotes reliability while not overburdening rate-payers with the costs of changes. And there is no model nationally or internationally to guide many of those efforts, said Pat Wood III, a former PUC commissioner and former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who now leads the Hunt Energy Network.
Lawmakers passed a series of laws in hopes of avoiding similar catastrophes in the future, including rebuilding the state’s deregulated power market from the ground up. “With our energy-only market, does that get you to where you need to get for reliability need for the long term?” Hill said. And demand for reliable energy is only set to increase as more people and businesses relocate to Texas, sucking more power from the grid to power their homes and companies. Cobos said she hopes that more market changes will be in place by winter, which has replaced summer as the state’s peak demand season.
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