Thread by @douglewinenergy

This update is starting now
carrolltontx.granicus.com/mediaplayer.ph…

#txlege #Txenergy
cc: @juliejohnsonTX @mattlargey

https://twitter.com/douglewinenergy/status/1458197147845898246

ERCOT's Jones tells Carrollton City Council: Generation fleet lost 50,000MW because of equipment failure and lack of fuel supply. That's equal to all of California's peak and was more than half of Texas' entire generation fleet.
#txlege #txenergy

When we lose supply, we have turn to the load side to keep balance. We turn to large facilities that have given us the ability to turn down their usage. (he's talking about #demandresponse which we need more of!!!) Once that's exhausted we have to turn off residential customers.

Jones says he was retired at the time of the outages and called former GM of Austin Energy (Roger Duncan maybe?) and asked why aren't these outages rolling? He said he was shocked to learn that there was nothing left to roll bc outages were so deep.

ERCOT CEO Jones said part of the problem getting out of the outages was that houses were so cold that they used so much power to warm up that htey overloaded transformers. He says we need to improve the process of how we roll outages.

He says #txlege gave ability to require weatherization and inspections. But says it is not true that generators didn't weatherize after 2011.

Not sure what basis he has to make that statement.

He says the problem was 2021 was so much worse than 2011.

#ERCOT CEO Jones says at least 7000MW of the outages were due to fuel supply issues. Says he is "hopeful" that the @txrrc requires weatherization of gas supply. Cites the anger of the Texas Senate in a hearing at lack of action.

Note, RRC meets tomorrow to discuss this.

Jones says there could be outages but if there are they will not be as severe. i think that is correct.

Jones is asked about gas supply. He says the rule is still draft and they could still improve it.
See tomorrow's meeting:
rrc.texas.gov/media/urme1tsi…

#ERCOT CEO Brad Jones says the gas problem PRECEEDED the power problem. He says we have to address gas weatherization separate from power plant weatherization.

This is corroborated by FERC and NERC
ferc.gov/news-events/ne…

ERCOT CEO Jones asked about the horrible communications during the storm, citizens of Carrollton and the City Council members didn't know when power would come back.

He points to his new communications lead Chris Schein and says they have been working to improve communications

Councilmember asks @ERCOT_ISO's Jones about interconnecting to Eastern & Western grids. Asks if he's in favor. Note #txlege through a @GinaForAustin amendment required @PUCTX to study those. Note too that @FERC and @NERC_Official said interconnecting would've lessened outages.

Jones says ERCOT has independence from federal regulation. Tells councilmembers just like you can decide for your constituents what's in their interests better than #txlege can, so, too, can ERCOT manage better than federal gov't.
(I'm sure the city council wishes #txlege agreed)

Jones says we have 3 connections and we couldn't get power through those. Says FERC/NERC don't believe we would have gotten much power from interconnects. I believe that's incorrect but I'll look it up later. They said SPP and MISO outages were not as deep bc of interconnections

Jones asked if we were 4+ minutes from grid collapse. He says his predecessor (Bill Magness) said that but it's not quite accurate. There's truth we were close but not given truth we would've been in complete blackout. But how could we improve?

Says he's talked to lots of people and put together roadmap of 60 items. Says they've completed 45 of those items. One item is how to come back quicker from a blackout situation.

For a great piece on "blackstart," coming back from complete grid failure: statesman.com/story/news/202…

Acknowledges that it could take 7 days (many experts said weeks) and he's working to get that down lower. Jones says he's a mechanical engineer and all the electrical engineers question his ideas.

Folks: improving blackstart is absolutely critical. Needs more attention.

Great question about planned maintenance. He says in the past ERCOT had to accept planned maintenance if they're notified 45 days in advance. Now they have the ability to reject those if they need to.

Still wondering why we had 20+ GW out in late Oct when conditions were tight.

Jones says they do have greater authority in spring and fall. Nice cool weather in those times so it wasn't an issue. He says variability of wind means we need more gas in spring and fall. (Doesn't mention impact of #climatechange but that absolutely is an issue).

#ERCOT's Jones asked about which went out first: gas or power? Jones says generators were notified as early as Friday or Saturday there were freeze-offs as gas would not be delivered. When power went out Sunday night/Monday morning, then more gas went offline. #txlege #txenergy

Another Councilmember asks about this article in the @dallasnews. Jones says he thinks there is confusion in the article and says he talked with @maringwolf about it. The market issues are about the future of ERCOT not about this winter, Jones says.

dallasnews.com/news/politics/…

I think there's a key point here: there are 2 different things happening. Market redesign is only tangentially about reliability & resiliency. It's about incumbent generators' business models. Most of the problems are caused by lack of effective regulation not lack of money

#ERCOT CEO says "We will be ready."

Not sure how he can say this without seeing the @txrrc final rule on gas supply.

Says he knows, as @GameOfThrones line goes, #winteriscoming
#txlege #txenergy

Jones says he is confident generators will be ready. He says each of the state's big 3 (@nrgenergy @VistraCorp
@Calpine) have spent >$10m on weatherization. Says Vistra spent $50m. He's asked about inspections. He says they're focusing on plants that had biggest problems in Feb.

He's asked about #equity in blackouts. What about concerns that some neighborhoods had longer outages than others? Jones said he urges local elected officials to talk with @oncor (or other utilities) about their load shed plans. (They control that, not @ERCOT_ISO)

A councilmember asks ERCOT's Jones, who do we prepare for growth? Jones cites need for additional transmission in the #RGV, underserved for 25 years with less reliable electricity than the rest of the state.

It's in here: ercot.com/content/wcm/li…

He says the @PUCTX passed the plan to expand transmission in the #RGV.

My note: this is a highlight of this newly constituted @PUCTX. Great leadership from Commissioner Cobos on this.

Jones says we need better resilience planning along coast bc of stronger hurricanes. #txlege

Jones says typically ERCOT focuses on summer reliability. Peaks are often ~75GW. In winter, typically about 60-65GW. But says there's nothing like a winter storm to impact energy supply so that's where we've been focusing. Note, @AndrewDessler estimates our peak was 82GW in Feb

He's asked about cybersecurity and physical security. Says on electric side there are NERC standards. Again, expresses "more concerns with the gas side which of course ERCOT does not control" Cites the gas pipeline attack earlier this year.

Mayor Pro Tem Cochran said her biggest concern is with constituents who were elderly or disabled and could not go anywhere. Asks about financial impacts of the storm. He says we need to spend money on reliability. Says he's not sure if there will be a cost increase. (cont)

#ERCOT's CEO says solar will push costs down for consumers "extraordinarily." There will be costs to balance variability of renewables but #wind and #solar will "continue to drive us to a lower price market and that's good." We need to have reliability tools to balance it...

He says balancing renewables will be enabled by controllable loads like #bitcoin and #demandresponse which will increase reliability and keep costs low.

Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Palacios asks about weatherization of homes.

Jones says "there's a lot of benefit that can be gained from weatherization" but consumers have tough choices. Says cities can look at building codes but that only addresses new buildings not existing.

#ERCOT's Jones: "I continue to think we should place more emphasis on #energyefficiency than we do... There's a lot of value and opportunity there."

My note: we will NOT solve this problem until we address the demand side of the equation.

#txlege #txenergy #energytwitter

Councilmember Potter asks about coal. Says they are contributing to #climatechange. Jones says @ERCOT_ISO does not make resource decisions. He says some markets price carbon. We don't do that in Texas but says "economics of coal plants have been greatly distressed."

ERCOT's Jones notes that natural gas prices are way up which makes coal more valuable than it has been in 10 years. Says we likely won't see any new coal. Potter asks does reliability = coal? Jones says it has more to do with quick moving generation, that's not coal (cont.)

Jones says (I'm paraphrasing): Reliability to me is more about #batteries, #Bitcoin (and controllable load resources), and special kinds of fast ramping gas plants.

This is why, he says, market redesign is needed to enable renewables and keep some older plants online
#txlege

And that's the end. So the townhall was not a townhall but rather a brief presentation and long Q&A with @CarrolltonTX City Council. Really glad @ERCOT_ISO CEO Brad Jones did this. Would be nice if y'all gave #energytwitter #txenergy and #txlege watchers a heads up though!!