"Over a two-day period in the run-up to Christmas, the state’s gas processing capacity fell 34%, according to Wood Mackenzie, an energy data & analytics firm."
There were no power outages but gas processing dropped 34%!
*At least* 2GW worth of power plants didn't work due to lack of gas.
This is a massive warning that the reforms from the last #txlege session haven't worked & better regulation is necessary to protect the public. 2/
“It doesn’t give me much confidence that we addressed the gas supply issues we faced w/ Winter Storm Uri,” said @joshdr83, a lead author of @EnergyUT's post-mortem on the blackouts.
The @PUCTX is about to recommend a direction for a new market design called Performance Credit Mechanism (PCM) (aka Pretty much a Capacity Market). It won't fix the problems with the grid but it will cost consumers dearly. PUC has an open meeting on the PCM today. #txlege 1/
The biggest problems with it: it won't solve either of the biggest challenges facing the grid: long cold snaps and summer nights. The "credits" given to generators will be random and impossible to predict. You can't build a power plant on a credit generated at random hours.
Bank of America's energy analysts put out a note this week about the immanent adoption of the PCM: "We see the latest developments as a positive for incumbent IPPs." That's independent power producers like @nrgenergy, Vistra, Constellation & Exelon who will make a killing.
Failure is a teacher but we seem to not be learning our lessons. Lots of repeat failures from Uri during Elliott:
- Permian gas output⬇️3.4bcf/day (>20%)
- Gas distribution failed many Texans
- Gas (& coal) plants had tons of problems which I detail in the 🧵below. 1/ #txlege
First, the gas system as @MichaelEWebber put it so well, showed its "flimsiness" again. Nationally outages were 16%. In the Permian it was 22%. Not good. To lose that much gas production with no snow & ice is not a good sign to say the least. #txenergy 2/ finance.yahoo.com/news/deadly-wi…
More on power plants later in the thread, but note that >40% of the coal plants in the state were offline at some point. Coal is costlier than wind & solar and it literally kills people, so if it's not there in extremes, why do we have it?! #energytwitter
A few #TXenergy takeaways as we thaw: 1) The grid's still vulnerable. #ERCOT CEO requested an emergency order yesterday, writing ERCOT “may not be able to avoid the need to curtail firm load.” That is, outage risk was real. He cited “natural gas delivery limitations.” #txlege 1/
Heard about this from @shelbywebb, see below. The language from ERCOT CEO Vegas was clear: "the loss of power to homes and local businesses in the areas that may be affected by curtailments presents a far greater risk to public health and safety." houstonchronicle.com/business/energ…
2) Communications are still terrible. Not one state official held a press conference or did a media availability to inform the public of this letter or why it was needed. This from @adelauchida was a common experience among journalists yesterday. #txlege
Grid update: Demand forecast is much lower than last night but ERCOT missed its forecast by 23% last night so that's cold comfort. A miss that bad tonight & conditions would be tight. Reports of gas supply ⬇️ 8bcf overall, ~3bcf in the Permian. Gas/coal outages ~9.5GW. #txlege 1/
Add it all up & still low chance of outages tonight, though higher than last night, esp. given the massive demand miss. #ERCOT and @PUCTX simply have to get better at forecasting demand and improving #energyefficiency. More on that here: 2/ douglewin.substack.com/p/2022-cold-sn…
I said coming into this the two biggest wild card were power demand & gas supply. The drops in gas output weren't enough to cause problems yet. I don't think this level of reduction would cause outages. Keepin an eye on it though. #energytwitter#natgas 3/
Don't forget that estimation for peak Uri demand was by ERCOT, which is off by ~8GW tonight. Note that @AndrewDessler and student Jangho Lee published research estimating Uri demand at ~82GW. These forecast misses are a major problem. #txlege 1/ eartharxiv.org/repository/vie…
I said before the storm the 2 biggest wild cards were forecast misses & nat gas supply. If natgas craters due to the freeze, tomorrow night could be problematic. The risk of outages, though still low, is higher now that before bc of the big forecast miss.
This was Recommendation 16 from FERC and NERC. #ERCOT & @PUCTX will need to answer questions about why this forecast was so far off. Did they "add staff with specialized knowledge of how weather impacts load including supplemental electric heating?" 3/ ferc.gov/media/february…
Why I don't think there will be power outages this week, a thread: 1) It'll be ~10° warmer than Uri w/no snow/ice so:
- peak demand will be lower
- shouldn’t be nearly as many issues for gas supply & power plants 2) Peak demand @ 10am instead of overnight #txlege#txwx 1/
Peak demand forecast is 69.5GW. Peak during Uri was between 76-82GW. However, the power went out in the early morning hours of Feb 15 at ~69.5GW, so that is very high demand. *But* the peak hitting at 10am instead of 1am is a massive difference. #txenergy 2/
There is little to no expected snow or ice so at 10am: 1) we'll have lots of solar production (more on that below) and 2) workers can get to sites where there are freezing issues. In many cases, they couldn't during the Uri #texasblackouts 3/