On the anniversary of Blackouts in Texas, ERCOT predicts a potential shortage of energy in the coming years – Public Radio in Texas

Electricity came to the home of the Chess family in northwestern Austin during the mass eclipse that covered the state in February 2021.

The shafts felt better than many Texas. Their gas fireplace continued to work and they remained warm, sitting around it under the blanket.

Then the family matriarch, 85-year-old Manjula, began to show signs of disaster. Her children called an ambulance, but she succumbed to hypothermia at the hospital.

She was one of 241 people Whose death the state says, it is related to the historical winter storm and eclipses.

“The other day I woke up and, of course, I started thinking about my mother,” said Manjula’s daughter, past chess, in front of Kut this week. – You ask. What could you do more? Did I do enough? He leaves his imprint on you. ”

After the eclipse, Shah says that everyone in her neighborhood is better prepared for emergencies. Many have purchased home generators. However, they get nervous when a winter storm enters.

“This is a little anxiety, which, hopefully, that the power does not disappear this time,” she says.

Texas is the only state in the lower 48 that has no large connections with adjacent energy networks. This means that energy demand must be answered by supply largely in Texas. He also puts state leaders on the hook when it comes to network reliability.

In the last four years, these leaders have conveyed two different messages that may seem contradictory. One: the network is better than ever. Second: there is still a lot of work to do.

This is a balancing act that was set out earlier this month during the state speech of Greg Abbot of State Speech, in which it advertises a multitude-dollar public fund approved by the last legislative session.

The Fund provides incentive to build new natural gas power plants that can supply 10,000 megawatts of electricity to the state.

“That’s enough to feed more than 2 million homes,” Abbot said.

“We need to add more power this session to better strengthen our network,” he added quickly.

Ercot sees (potential) storm clouds

Almost four years until the day after the start of the eclipses, the state’s network operator, the Advisure to reliability of the Texas Electrical Engineering, has released a report that is likely to deepen concerns about the power line.

The ERCOT capacity, search and reserves report, published on Thursday, looks at various possible network conditions in the future. It includes an extreme scenario where the massive growth of energy demand in Texas exceeds the available energy supply as early as 2026.

The experts were skeptical.

“I really don’t think all this search will appear,” says Joshua Rhodes, a UT Austin researcher who studies the network. “I don’t think it’s physically possible for this whole request to show.”

Rhodes said the new ERCOT forecast is based on the latest mandates by the state legislative body to include a more “speculative” demand growth. For example, he said, if the data center is considering five different places to open a store in Texas, the law instructed ERCOT to “consider it like all five of these data centers come” in its forecasts.

While the new model of the forecast makes the report less useful to analysts and energy companies, Rhodes said it may be welcome from legislators who want to encourage more gas pipelines.

“If you can look like the sky falls, it can be much easier to make a case,” he said.

“Political appetite”

A reliable energy system involves more than the construction of new power plants, and analysts say the state has made progress in some areas.

After the eclipse, legislators require religious standards to help power plants move in cold, rationalized emergency communications and set up programs to help some power plants maintain spare fuel.

Rhodes also points to a boom in the solar energy that helped to meet peak energy demand, especially in the summer, and a boom in large batteries that have helped the network throughout the year.

Although, he said, these developments have happened largely without the support of the state legislative body.

“Texas did not do it at all for the reason for the transition of energy,” Rhodes said. “We just made it easier to build things here. And so people started building things here. ”

Critics of Texas Energy Policy say more should be done.

Environmentalists point out that Texas has not improved energy efficiency standards after eclipses. Both state legislators and regulators usually reject the idea of ​​joining the neighboring energy networks, something that federal regulators have suggested for years.

Following the blacks, MPs also rejected proposals to increase the supply of natural gas supplies to the state to ensure that gas reaches the power plants when necessary.

“There seems to be no political appetite to deal with this aspect of the gas industry here in Texas,” says Beth Garza, based on Austin Energy Consultant and a former ERCOT market monitor.

In the end, said Rhodes, the most true test of how much the power supply has changed can be a storm of the same magnitude that Texas saw in 2021. Ecot evaluation in November found that there was still an 80% likelihood of more likely to -The short “movable” interruptions in such an event.

With heavy cold fronts that hit the country more often, this is not something that chess goes to be around. Earlier this week, she got on a plane to gather with old friends. Shah said they were discussing the collection in Austin, but they decided against it.

“We couldn’t trust the time,” she said. “And we also couldn’t trust whether we would have power or not.”

Instead, they spend February in Florida.

Copyright 2025 Kut 90.5