Grid scapegoats
Reading the Electric Reliability Council of Texas public presentation and watching the hearing Thursday brings to mind the saying: “It’s not what they say, but what they don’t say.”
With wind energy comprising 23 percent of the available sources of electricity, who allowed it to be included in our state’s electrical grid without winterization? Natural gas production failed more, but not by much.
With peak needs such as those during the freeze last month happening once a decade and no leadership or laws coming from Austin, Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and the Texas Legislature shouldn’t be allowed to scapegoat the Public Utilities Commission or ERCOT and get away with it.
Ice doesn’t linger long enough — even in Northwest Texas — for economics alone to drive the grid reliability that Texas needs, even at $9,000 per megawatthour for very short periods. Life, prosperity and our state’s reputation have suffered without it.
Brian Blackwell, Helotes
For the ninth consecutive year, Texas has outpaced every other state by a big margin for the most new and expanded corporate facilities, a new report released Monday shows.
Site Selection magazine, a trade publication that’s compiled the annual ranking since 1978, said Texas led the list with 781 projects in 2020. Runner-up Ohio had 419.
Both top states had fewer projects in a year that started out with a strong economy that was slammed by the pandemic.
Major company investments in Texas last year include Tesla’s $1 billion plan to build an auto plant in Austin and Houstonbased
Axiom Space’s intentions to invest $2 billion in its aerospace facility. Other projects included retail fulfillment, such as an Amazon expansion into Waco and a TJX Cos. project in El Paso.
Texas and Ohio benefited from having diverse economies, as did other high-ranking states such as No. 3 Georgia, No. 4 Illinois and No. 5 North Carolina, the economic development magazine said.
“All the metrics are moving in the right direction,” Gov. Greg Abbott told the magazine in early February about the state’s recovery.
Hundreds of companies are said to be eyeing moves to the state, and Texas sees a steady
flow every year of relocations from California and other states perceived to be less friendly to business.
Abbott spoke before a week of freezing temperatures knocked out power for as many as 4 million Texans. The outages ranged from a few hours to consecutive days. Large and smaller cities were forced to boil water, and dozens of deaths were tied to the frigid temperatures.
On Monday, Abbott gave credit for winning the top spot to local, regional and statewide economic development teams and the companies that chose to invest in the state. He brought up the COVID-19 pandemic challenges. Texas was one of the first states to open up the economy from forced closings last spring.
But Abbott didn’t mention the power outages and the fallout still being calculated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which settles the payments estimated at more than $40 billion. ERCOT manages the state’s electrical grid.
Other economic development rankings that put Texas near the top point to abundant and affordable energy. Over the past 20 years, net electric generation grew 20 percent in Texas — more than three times faster than growth for the rest of the U.S.
State officials say they’re working on solutions to prevent another shock to the grid. The Legislature held hearings Thursday and Friday. Executives of power generators, retail electricity providers, natural gas producers and pipelines, renewable energy providers and others answered questions about the days leading up to and including the week of Feb. 14.