Thread by @douglewinenergy

The Texas Senate dealt a major setback to the efforts of the PUC Chair & some generators attempting to redesign the #ERCOT market, telling them to hold off. The PUCT's biggest mistake? They never defined the problems they're trying to solve. 1/🧵
#txlege
dallasnews.com/news/politics/…

Unfortunately, it seems that #txlege is repeating that mistake. I think there are three major problems we need to solve: (1) prolonged extreme winter storms (2) hot summer evenings & (3) cost.

*There is no one thing that will solve all of these problems*
utilitydive.com/news/texas-law…

We need to identify & diagnose the problem correctly. Acc'g to @FERC & @NERC_Official, during Uri, Texas had massive demand (spiked by inefficient heat) & frozen gas supply & power plants (made catastrophic by lack of effective regulation). #txenergy 3/

https://twitter.com/douglewinenergy/status/1461011229829390336?s=20&t=2sl4tXYyUc46oeSVnKZy4Q

So if policymakers want to prevent outages during long cold spells (as I hope they do), then they need stronger regulation to weatherize gas supply & power plants & they need to reduce demand through #energyefficiency. A targeted backup reserve is likely also needed. #txlege 4/

Some policymakers want to focus on summer evenings. Great! Then we need flexible resources like storage, #demandresponse, and/or fast ramping power plants. (Energy efficiency will reduce the amount you need.) Don't pick winners though: make those dispatchable resources compete.

And what about costs? Consumers are straining to pay historically high energy bills. Policymakers in charge haven't proposed any solutions to deal with this problem which threatens individual homeowners & renters as well as the state's economy. #txlege 6/
dallasnews.com/business/energ…

Building a lot of new gas power plants & requiring customers to pay for them will cause higher bills. If you want to lower bills, you need to integrate more renewables & increase #energyefficiency. The PUCT's consultant showed that high renewables reduced energy costs by 20%!

No one thing will solve any, much less all, of these problems. Unfortunately, some policymakers are trying to solve a different problem. They don't like renewables and want more gas plants. That won't solve any of the problems and will make #3 far worse. #txlege #energytwitter 8/

In fact, FERC & NERC noted higher than expected outages of gas plants and wrote: "This observation validates the concerns that NERC raised in the 2013 Long-Term Reliability Assessment on increased dependence on natural gas for electric power.” #txlege 9/

Get that? Gas plants are costly *and* don't necessarily increase reliability.

First, clearly define the problems. Then, diagnose the problems using experts (& not only industry stakeholders as #txlege keeps doing).

*Then* move to the solutions.
#txlege renewableenergyworld.com/solar/texas-gr…

Unfortunately, the PUCT and now #txlege seem to be doing this in inverse order. As the Senate calls for the PUC to not adopt a capacity market no matter the name—and they're right to do that—they should also tap the breaks & take time to define and diagnose the problems. #txlege

If you define the problem as dealing with (1) extreme extended winter storms and (2) hot summer nights while also (3) reducing energy costs, new natural gas plants don't make a lot of sense. There are many solutions that are both more effective and cost a lot less. #txlege End/🧵