Thread by @douglewinenergy

FERC & NERC released their winter reliability assessment & it's not good for Texas. In a Uri-like event we would be short "by about 19.7GW," almost as much as Feb. 2021. To the suprise of few, the ERCOT grid still has major problems.
#txlege #txenergy 1/
ferc.gov/media/report-2…

https://twitter.com/douglewinenergy/status/1583090511950143489

"For extreme winter conditions, such as occurred during Winter Storm Uri, ERCOT indicates the need to allow for a resource derate of 11.5GW. This would reduce available resources to 64.3 GW for an extreme winter condition, which is below the extreme winter peak load of 84 GW...

"...by about 19.7 GW. During extreme winter conditions, while ERCOT can gain 1.6 GW of benefit from operational mitigations, this still leaves a shortfall of up to 18.1 GW. These above-normal winter peak load and outage conditions could result in the need to employ EEAs...

"... and operational tools (i.e., demand response, transfers, and load shed), which may be needed under extreme peak demand and outage scenarios."

You'll likely recall that "load shed" means, in common usage, blackouts. This is not the assessment anyone should want to see. 4/

On the positive side, FERC and NERC expect a mild winter. They also note progress note on adoption of weatherization standards and inspections. Still, the risk of outages in extreme winter weather remains high according to this report.
#txlege 5/

During the FERC meeting today, Chairman Glick noted that the problem in Feb 2021 was not lack of generation capacity, it was lack of fuel availability (gas and coal) and *operational* capacity. We are still vulnerable for the same reasons.
#txlege #energytwitter 6/

Many of the FERC/NERC recommendations made in the wake of the February disaster (e.g., #energyefficiency and #demandresponse, more stringent weatherization and regulation of gas supply, to name but a few) have not yet (or only barely) been acted on. #txlege 7/ End🧵