Texas again seen at risk of winter blackouts

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas’ grid operator Friday released its predictions for peak electricity use for this winter that showed steep shortfalls in power capacity in an extreme event.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ projection, known as the Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy, was already facing criticism for using data that did not account for climate change and did not take into account weather and outage data from February’s deadly storm.

The main failure of the report, according to Texas A&M University atmospheric sciences professor Andrew Dessler, is that the council based projections of extreme demand on a 2011 winter event that left wide swaths of North Texas without power. He said the report shows that Texans have about a one-in-10 chance of seeing weather-related power outages this winter.

“One in 10 years seems to me to be not a great worstcase scenario,” Dessler said. “That means that there’s a 10% chance we’re going to do worse than that.”

The peak amount of electricity in the 2011 event was far below projections made for February’s winter storm. But even with a lower benchmark than what Texans saw just nine months ago, the council predicted that any scenario with electric usage on par with the 2011 event coupled with widespread plant outages would cause blackouts.

“It’s a political document not reflective of reality,” said Doug Lewin, an Austin-based energy consultant, adding that the report’s quiet release late Friday “speaks volumes.”

Electric Reliability Council officials provided a statement noting that the assessment did not take into account enhancements electric companies made to their power plants in the aftermath of the winter storm.

“As part of our comprehensive planning, we also reviewed a number of low-probability, high-impact scenarios,” the statement said. “Making these scenarios available will allow better preparation for extreme possibilities. Generators across the state have made improvements in power plant weatherization.”

The council faced withering criticism over its handling of the winter storm, which led to the deaths of at least 210 Texans. State lawmakers cleaned house at the grid operator, revamped its board and called for the resignation of many of its top officials. Gov. Greg Abbott also called for the resignation of every one of his appointees to its oversight board, the Public Utility Commission.

New boards are in place, and the Legislature also passed bills requiring power plant owners to weatherize their equipment.