Keeping The Elephants Away

Inspections of power generators will begin in January - and with power companies reporting 15% more capacity than last winter- Abbott doubled down on his confidence in the grid. https://t.co/WAhRsQhOyM

— FOX 7 Austin (@fox7austin) November 27, 2021

Abbott is confident about the electrical grid in Texas because he signed some toothless laws.  And 15% more capacity is basically twice nothing when the entire grid came so close to collapse power was cut off across almost the entire state last February.  Abbott also knows the odds of a repeat of February 2021 in 2022 are astronomically large against. So when winter passes without a repeat of this year’s disaster, he’ll be able to claim in the campaign that he kept the winter elephants away.

Not that I would wish for another incident like that, even if it guaranteed the expulsion of Greg Abbott from office.  But one can safely say Greg Abbott is simply full of shit:

The power and gas industries say they are working to make their systems more reliable during winter storms, and the Public Utility Commission, the state agency that regulates the state’s power industry, finally acted on recommendations made by federal regulators a decade ago after another severe winter storm.

But energy experts say Texas’ grid remains vulnerable, largely because newly written regulations allowed too much wiggle room for companies to avoid weatherization improvements that can take months or years. More than nine months after February’s storm — which could exceed Hurricane Harvey as the costliest natural disaster in state history — a lack of data from regulators and industry groups makes it impossible to know how many power and gas facilities are properly weatherized.

For millions of Texans, that means there is no assurance that they will have electricity and heat if another major freeze strikes the state.

This, in fact, is what Texas has done since February 2021:

The main Texas grid is an island, not connected to the country’s two major power grids. This is by design, the result of actions by state leaders decades ago to avoid federal regulation and encourage free-market competition. Multiple state agencies, as well as a nonprofit organization — the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT — govern the grid’s operations, writing rules based on laws passed by state lawmakers.

The lawmakers responded to February's disaster by passing legislation aimed at improving the power system’s preparedness for winter. It established weatherization mandates but left it to state regulators to implement them.

The Public Utility Commission followed with a rule enacting the weatherization requirements. But the rule allows power plants to request an exception if they document their efforts to comply, explain why they couldn’t and submit a plan to do so later.

The Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the natural gas industry, is working more slowly. A proposal published in September — and expected to be finalized Dec. 1 — lays out a timeline that would identify, map and impose weatherization mandates by early 2023 for gas producers that supply power plants. It also seeks to prevent a repeat of a major paperwork error that resulted in dozens of natural gas providers having their power cut off during February’s rolling blackouts because they failed to declare themselves “critical infrastructure.”

But the proposed rule, which the Railroad Commission said was written to reflect the language in the new state law, allows gas companies to opt out of that classification and avoid having to weatherize their equipment. That infuriated many legislators, despite the fact they’d voted for the law that allowed it after lobbying by the natural gas industry.

The result is that Texas has done “next to nothing” to weatherize its natural gas supply, said Doug Lewin, an Austin-based energy consultant. 

And why is that?

The natural gas industry has been among the most politically powerful in Texas for generations and has donated generously to the campaigns of governors, lawmakers and the Railroad Commission. That contributes to a culture in which gas companies have escaped strict weatherization mandates, energy experts and consumer advocates say.

The Texas Oil and Gas Association, one of the most prominent energy lobbyist groups in Texas, defended the gas industry’s image in a public relations campaign after the storm. It also has had a heavy hand in deciding who sits on an informal advisory council that lawmakers codified after the storm, intended to ensure energy and electricity operations continue during extreme weather. 

The irony here is that the Texas Constitution was written in a 19th century populist fever and rage against banks and railroad companies, the Elon Musk/Silicon Valley of the 19th century. (Well, banks are still too big and powerful, huh?)  One agency established by that Constitution was the Texas Railroad Commission, which controlled the world oil price back when Texas was one of the major suppliers of oil in the world.  OPEC took notice and modeled their control of the market in the '70's on the success of the RRC.  Now, of course, the RRC (an independent government agency) is controlled by the very big business interests it was originally established to protect Texans against.

And begun the finger pointing has:

And the Railroad Commission said it did not know how many natural gas companies are actually prepared for winter. An agency spokesperson said ERCOT would have this information.

An ERCOT spokesperson declined to comment.

As the Railroad Commission works on its weatherization rule, electricity companies — including Oncor, AEP Texas, CenterPoint and Texas-New Mexico Power Company — have already begun criticizing the proposal. The companies filed a comment with the commission arguing that the proposed rule was too vague and “does not provide information electric utilities will need in order to efficiently and effectively incorporate natural gas facilities into their respective” emergency plans.

ERCOT has no real authority at all; the Public Utility Commission has all the authority (what little it does have) in this matter.

Will this winter be as hard as last winter?  Probably not.  That would truly be an aberration.  Still, all we can count on is Gov. Abbott's promises to keep the elephants of winter away.