There is massive potential for more #EnergyEfficiency in Texas. EE reduces customers' bills, increases reliability & creates jobs. There are 158,882 EE workers in Texas, according to an @E4theFuture report. Many more could be created by #txlege. 1/ ee.e4thefuture.org
There's massive potential for more EE jobs. #Texas is among the worst states for #EnergyEfficiency goals, and we're 36th per capita in EE jobs.
Even so, EE is the 3rd largest energy sector in Texas w/ 31,000 EE businesses employing nearly 159,000 Texans. #txlege#txenergy 2/
Over 6 million TX homes are >20 years old & pre-date statewide building codes. We could create jobs and make the grid more reliable and resilient by improving the energy efficiency of these homes which could lower energy use (and bills) by >40%. #energytwitter 3/
There are #energyefficiency workers in every single Tex#as county with higher concentrations in some non-intuitive places like Martin, Calhoun, Lee, Panola, and Carson Counties, to name just a few.
There are big workforce needs as demand for #energyefficiency goes up w/ #InflationReductionAct incentives. There's a particular need to increase workforce diversity to better reflect our state.
Lots of opporunity for veterans who comprise 7% of the EE workforce #txenergy 5/
Bipartisan coalitions voted to reduce energy waste & create #energyefficiency jobs. In 1999, a majority of both Rs & Ds voted to establish EE goals. In 2007 & 2011, bipartisan bills increased the goals. But #txlege has passed no EE increases in 12 yrs. #txenergy#energytwitter 6/
The Texas energy-only market is, to reprise Churchill, the worst form of energy market except for every other. It needs to evolve but should not be abandoned.
In the last 2 yrs, generating companies added 2,000MW of gas plants and they added another 393MW *last month* alone! There are 2,500MW w/ signed interconnections & another 10,000MW in the interconnection process.
There's no need for a PCM or the state to buy gas plants! 2/
Electric generating companies are also adding wind, solar, and storage, making Texas among the top states in all three. That's good! It saves consumers a lot of money: $1 billion a month last year through August! (And lowers pollution, too!) #energytwitter utilitydive.com/news/texas-sol…
About 800,000 Texans are heading into tonight w/out power. It doesn't have to be this way. Distributed energy resources (local generation & storage) along w/ weatherization for homes and buildings could make the grid much more resilient. #txlege 1/ douglewin.substack.com/p/local-outage…
I often hear people say that local outages aren't problems with the power grid. It the job of policymakers & regulators to make sure *all* of it works and is reliable—not just part of it.
The grid is divided into transmission (ERCOT) & the distribution sides... (cont.) 2/
...but it's all part of the same grid!
DER solutions increase reliability for the *entire grid*. They can participate in wholesale markets increasing reliability there and provide power when there are distribution outages. #txlege#txenergy 3/
Unfortunately, this tweet from last night turned out to be true. 250,000 accounts (probably ~600,000 Texans) are without power right now. About half of those are in Austin/Travis County. Tree limbs are falling all over the place in my South Austin neighborhood. #txenergy#wxtx 1/
Check on vulnerable friends, family & neighbors. Also, close blinds & curtains, put towels or blankets (makeshift insulation) wherever you feel cold air coming in, and then heat your home a few degrees warmer than normal. That way if you lose power, you'll stay warmer longer. 2/
I wouldn't normally advise that but, with temps in the 20s or 30s and little need for secondary resistance heat, demand is fairly low in ERCOT (62GW now compared to 74GW on Dec. 23) so a little extra warming of homes this morning won't cause problems. #txenergy 3/
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.
"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.
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