Dive Brief:
The majority of outages within the Texas grid during a February cold snap were weather-related, a preliminary report from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) found.
At peak, 54% of generator outages in the region were caused by weather-related issues, during the Feb. 14-19 time period, while 14% of outages were caused by equipment failures and 12% by fuel limitations. Approximately 51,173 MW were forced offline during that period, according to ERCOT s analysis, sent to the Texas Public Utility Commission Tuesday, down slightly from the grid operator s original estimate of 52,277 MW.
Weather-related outages were defined by the grid operator as outages explicitly attributed to cold weather, including frozen or flooded equipment. ERCOT is still waiting on data from the full event, which lasted from Feb. 10-19.
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With two months left in the legislative session, Texas state policymakers are split on two key issues related to the deadly power outages in February: electricity repricing and natural gas reforms.
“It just feels like there s. this huge overhang over the whole market that somehow needs to be reconciled,” said Beth Garza, a senior fellow with the R Street Institute think tank and, until 2019, the independent market monitor for the Electric Reliability Council Of Texas electricity market.
The current market monitor says electricity prices were too high for too long during the storm, resulting in about $16 billion of overcharges in the final 32 hours of the crisis. The monitor has repeatedly recommended that the Public Utility Commission retroactively lower prices, which the agency has so far declined to do.
Texas Policymakers Split On Electricity Repricing, Natural Gas Reforms In Aftermath Of Winter Storm tpr.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tpr.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
April 4, 2021
In which @SenJohnKennedy says the Texas power grid failures that left millions without power or clean water were basically the cost of doing business, which means @DanaPerino has to save him by pivoting to an immigration question. pic.twitter.com/a37RZILZ1x Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) April 1, 2021
How about a grid that doesn’t treat living beings as collateral damage?
WASHINGTON President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan could help rebuild Texas highways and ports and push broadband into rural parts of the state, where up to 31 percent of residents do not have access to high-speed internet.
It could help Texas weatherize the grid in a way that wouldn’t stick consumers with the bill as well as guard the Gulf Coast against hurricanes and address racial disparities that have made Latino and Black communities particularly vulnerable to natural disasters.
Texas Governor Names New Head of Embattled Utility Regulator financialpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from financialpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.