ERCOT’s confusing tweets by design
Messages sent during storm were part of improved updates
Ahead of what turned out to be one of the worst winter storms in the state’s history, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas was charged with providing the public consistent updates on power outages, tips for consumers and other important “crisis communications.”
But as Texas froze and ERCOT called for rolling power outages to manage the titanic demand for power, the agency’s main vehicle for providing the public with information was a series of Twitter posts sometimes indecipherable to most residents.
Temperatures in Austin and San Antonio were plunging into single digits early Feb. 15, for example, when an automated ERCOT tweet went out at 1:12 a.m., saying the agency “has declared an EEA 2. Consumers are urged to reduce electricity use. Rotating outages may be needed to protect the system.”
Thirteen minutes later, ERCOT cryptically declared an “EEA 3” — the acronym stands for “Energy Emergency Alert” — and warned that rotating outages were underway.
Some tweets also referred to “load shedding,” an industry term for the forced outages that left many Texans scratching their heads.
New documents released this week show that the jargon-heavy verbiage was a central feature of ERCOT’s improved crisis communications plan, one that was disseminated to the agency’s overseers at the Public Utility Commission about a month in advance of the storm.
Even the nonautomated tweets were often difficult to understand.
“Weather, more generation outages last night bring load shed to 18,500 MW,” read another tweet from about 1:30 a.m. Feb. 16.
“For today … generators to return, renewable output to increase = increased customer restoration.”
That meant ERCOT had cut off enough electricity to power 3.7 million homes in order to keep the state’s electric grid from crashing.
The selection of Twitter — which is used by an estimated 22 percent of the U.S. adult population — was another questionable call that drew criticism.
The documents were released by the utility commission in response to a request filed by the Houston Chronicle under the Texas Public Information Act.
Texas lawmakers and others have criticized ERCOT for the hard-to-decipher messages and for not putting out warnings that the crisis could endure longer than expected. ERCOT has also been faulted for failing to advise people to gather blankets and jackets and find emergency shelter if necessary.
Then-ERCOT CEO Bill Magness told lawmakers during a hearing in late February that the agency had made a concerted effort to improve crisis communications since winter storm outages in 2011 that affected more than 3 million Texans.
But, he said, “the scope and the extent of this event, I think, overwhelmed what we had planned, and that’s a failure on our part.”
The agency did not “pivot fast enough” when it realized that outages would be long-lasting, he said. Later in the storm, the agency started using the term “controlled outages” instead of “rotating outages.”
“We talked to the state operations center about it and realized that the inquiries they were getting were confused, things we were hearing were confused,” Magness said. “We had to change that messaging, and turning that around wasn’t done as effectively, certainly, as it could have been.”
Magness added that the agency planned to review its communications plan and make more improvements.
The agency also repeatedly directed people to its website, mobile app and Twitter. The documents show that the agency’s recorded call center messages told people stuck on hold to follow ERCOT on Twitter “for the most upto-date information about grid conditions.”
In addition to low Twitter usage rates, almost 2 million Texans do not have access to high-speed internet.
ERCOT spokeswoman Leslie Sopko in an email pointed out that the agency also distributed media releases, hosted daily media briefings — some of which were livestreamed by TV stations — and activated its emergency call center to answer questions.
Lighthearted tweets Feb. 14 urging Texans to “unplug the fancy new appliances you bought during the pandemic and only used once” and to close the blinds because “you already know what it looks like outside” — just days before nearly 200 people died during the storm — appear nowhere in the plan.
During legislative hearings about the grid failures, Rep. Eddie Lucio III, D-Brownsville, slammed ERCOT for the tweets that he described as “goofy” and tone-deaf.
“It wasn’t ‘things are really serious — please pay attention,’ ” Lucio said. “Meanwhile, your most substantive press releases, social media posts, were posted at 12:30 a.m., 1:30 a.m., 2 a.m. and not reposted.”
Other lawmakers have also expressed their frustration with ERCOT’s messaging.
“ERCOT was pathetic. The PUC was nonexistent,” state Rep. Sam Harless, R-Spring, said during the hearing. “We have to answer to our people, and they deserve to know what’s going on. And they didn’t.”
Several bills have been proposed this legislative session to establish a statewide alert system for power outage emergencies, including Senate Bill 3, which passed out of chamber last week and now heads to the House. Others suggest studying a statewide alert system for all disasters.
House Bill 11, which passed out last week as well and heads to the Senate, would require the utility commission to set “best practices” for ERCOT and power providers when communicating with the public during extreme weather emergencies, in “multiple languages” and using “multiple methods.”