THE TEXAS ENERGY FREEZE

By BLAKE JONES Attorney Blake Jones PLLC 

ENERGYCENTRAL - Nov 19, 2021 - This week, FERC and NERC published their Final Report on the the February 2021 cold weather event in Texas and the South Central United States.  The full report and supporting documents can be found here.  This final reports highlights: 

• 81 percent of freeze-related generating unit outages occurred at temperatures above the units’ stated ambient design temperature.
• 87 percent of unplanned generation outages due to fuel issues were related to natural gas, predominantly related to production and processing issues, while 13 percent involved issues with other fuels such as coal or fuel oil.
• Natural gas fuel supply issues were caused by natural gas production declines, with 43.3 percent of natural gas production declines caused by freezing temperatures and weather, and 21.5 percent caused by midstream, wellhead or gathering facility power losses, which could be attributed either to rolling blackouts or weather-related outages such as downed power lines. 

As someone who (i) played a key role in the development, financing, and construction of over 2 GW of generation in ERCOT, (ii) advised Panda Power Funds in its litigation against ERCOT, and (iii) lives in Dallas, Texas, I was intently focused Winter Storm Uri's effect on the ERCOT power system.  FERC and NERC's Final Report had me reflect on the Op-Ed I wrote in March 2021.  The primary theme stood: "no one imagined a weeklong extreme cold spell, despite Hollywood blockbusters imagining extreme weather events and much, much worse." 

As the infrastructure bill heads through reconciliation, it is my hope that this legislative support will not only incentivize a cleaner grid but a more reliable and resilient grid.  We stand at a precipice.  Often, I hear professionals conflate reliability with resiliency.  It is important we recognize the difference between reliability and resiliency while we continue building out a cleaner grid.  The infrastructure bill will foster investments in clean energy infrastructure, reliability, and resiliency, but we should not discount the power of our imagination.  

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This thought leadership article was originally shared with Energy Central's Grid Professionals Community Group. The communities are a place where professionals in the power industry can share, learn and connect in a collaborative environment. Join the Grid Professionals Community today and learn from others who work in the industry.

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