Deep freeze paralyzes Texas and knocks out its power grid

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Furious Texans who have been without electricity for two straight days are demanding answers as to why the energy rich state has been left paralyzed and unable to produce enough power to face a winter storm – as the electrical grid CEO refuses to take the blame for the ongoing crisis.  

The winter storm has resulted in people sleeping in their cars to keep warm amid unprecedented rolling blackouts that have plunged five million into darkness. 

Images showing empty office buildings in downtown Houston still lit up overnight has sparked outrage given the millions elsewhere without power, while hundreds have been forced to line up outside grocery stores in the freezing cold for supplies.

Texas Gov Greg Abbott on Tuesday demanded an investigation into the state’s main power grid operator and officials in Galveston County said they were bringing in refrigerated trucks to handle the expected influx of dead bodies as a result of the storm. 

The storm has so far resulted in 15 deaths in multiple states. Deaths in Texas included a woman and a girl who died from suspected carbon monoxide poisoning in Houston at a home without electricity from a car running in an attached garage 

‘The Electric Reliability Council of Texas has been anything but reliable over the past 48 hours… Far too many Texans are without power and heat for their homes as our state faces freezing temperatures and severe winter weather. This is unacceptable,’ Abbott said.  

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which oversees the state’s main power grid, is still struggling to restore power after failing to keep up with heightened demand. ERCOT provides electricity to about 90 percent of the state. 

CEO Bill Magness has refused to take the blame for the crisis, saying it is down to ‘catastrophic conditions’. He told WFAA that he was unable to say when power would be restored. 

‘The number one job of everybody here at ERCOT is to get people’s lights back on. We’re seeing demand in the winter nearly like we see at the top of the summer, when we’re all using our air conditioners,’ he said. 

‘We have seen nothing like this honestly in Texas, that has covered the state like the storm has. It increased demand to an extreme, extraordinary height, and then the storm also made it difficult for the supply to be provided.’

It comes as the spot price of wholesale electricity on the Texas power grid spiked more than 10,000% on Monday, according to data on the grid operator’s website. 

Real-time wholesale market prices on the ERCOT power grid were more than $9,000 per megawatt hour late Monday morning, compared with pre-storm prices of less than $50 per megawatt hour. 

ERCOT can be more susceptible to wholesale price spikes because it does not have a capacity market, which pays power plants to be on standby during peak demand and weather emergencies, for example. ERCOT’s model means consumers are not paying for generation that may never be called into action.

But early on Monday, ERCOT said extreme weather conditions caused many generating units – across all fuel types – to trip offline and become unavailable. That forced more than 30,000 megawatts of power generation off the grid, ERCOT said in a news release. 

The cold blast caused by winter storm Uri has wreaked havoc on the energy industry with Texas oil wells and refineries halted and natural gas pipelines and wind turbines frozen. 

Experts say the energy crisis essentially boils down to equipment freezing because power plants failed to properly winterize their hardware.  

Oil production in the country’s largest crude-producing state has plunged by more than two million barrels a day due to the storm, which has sent prices surging to $60 a barrel for the first time in a year. 

Wind turbines, which account for a fifth of the state’s energy, have frozen solid as temperatures plummet to a bitter -20F. 

Texas’s grid operator and the Southwest Power Pool, a group of utilities across 14 states, imposed unprecedented rolling blackouts because the supply of reserve energy had been exhausted. Some utilities said they were starting blackouts, while others urged customers to reduce power usage, in a bid to prevent the collapse of their networks. 

Surging demand, driven by people trying to keep their homes warm and cold weather knocking some power stations offline, has pushed Texas’ system beyond the limits.

Dan Woodfin, a senior director of system operations at ERCOT, has defended preparations made by grid operators and described the demand on the system as record-setting. 

‘This weather event, it’s really unprecedented. We all living here know that,’ he said. 

‘This event was well beyond the design parameters for a typical, or even an extreme, Texas winter that you would normally plan for. And so that is really the result that we’re seeing.’ 

He said limited supplies of natural gas and frozen instruments at power plants are partly to blame for the blackouts.      

Experts trying to shed light on the crisis say it started to unfold when freezing temperatures that started at the beginning of the month led to record demand for electricity as Texans tried to heat their homes, which sent prices for heating fuels, including oil and natural gas, surging higher. 

ERCOT said demand reached a record of 69,150 megawatts on Sunday night, which is more than 3,200 MW higher than the previous winter peak in January 2018.

Experts have said that as people were turning up their heat, power plants and pipelines were freezing or being taken offline due to the temperatures.

At least five oil refineries in Texas have shut down operations because of the storm. Natural gas facilities and pipelines in Texas also closed after wellheads started to freeze up or get blocked with ice and compressors lost power.

Natural gas makes up about half of the state’s power generation. But much of what was available was used to enable people to heat their homes instead of generating more electricity.

Joshua Rhodes, of the University of Texas, told Gizmodo: ‘We don’t have the supply of gas that we normally do and we’re consuming gas in record numbers, which is also depressurizing the gas lines.

‘Natural gas power plants also require a certain pressure to operate, so if they can’t get that pressure, they also have to shut down. Everything that could go wrong is going wrong with the system.’

Rhodes said part of the issue is because the power grid in Texas is mostly prepared for heat waves rather than winter storms.

‘We just have this unprecedented strain on both our major energy grids that is just way beyond what they were designed to handle,’ he said.

‘About half of Texas homes heat their homes with natural gas, about half do it with electricity, and about half our power plants also consume natural gas to make that electricity.’   

Neil Chatterjee, a member of the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, told Bloomberg the situation was critical.

‘I’ve been following energy markets and grid issues for a while, and I cannot recall an extreme weather event that impacted such a large swath of the nation in this manner – the situation is critical,’ he said. 

Reports are now emerging of Texans staying in their cars just to keep warm, including 44-year-old Clint Cash. 

He told CBS: ‘It was awfully cold and of course getting colder, but honestly I slept in all my clothes, pretty much what I’m wearing right now I slept in. I am taking it minute by minute day by day. I don’t plan on driving.’ 

Deaths in Texas included a woman and a girl who died from suspected carbon monoxide poisoning in Houston at a home without electricity from a car running in an attached garage, police said. 

Law enforcement also said subfreezing temperatures were likely to blame for the deaths of two men found along Houston-area roadways. 

A half-dozen Houston residents were treated for carbon monoxide poisoning on Monday after using a charcoal grill to warm their home, officials said. 

Texas officials have requested 60 generators from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and planned to prioritize hospitals and nursing homes. The state opened 35 shelters to more than 1,000 occupants, the agency said. 

More than 500 people sought comfort at one shelter in Houston. Mayor Sylvester Turner said other warming centers had to be shut down because they lost power. 

As nightfall threatened to plummet temperatures again into single digits in Texas, officials warned that homes in the state still without power would likely not have heat until at least Tuesday.  

‘Things will likely get worse before they get better,’ said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in the county of nearly 5 million people around Houston.  

Temperatures nosedived into the single-digits as far south as San Antonio, and homes that had already been without electricity for hours had no certainty about when the lights and heat would come back on. 

In Dallas, officials told residents to refrain from calling 911 to report power outages as the 911 call center became overwhelmed with power outage calls.  

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas sought to cut power use in response to a winter record of 69,150 megawatts on Sunday evening, more than 3,200 MW higher than the previous winter peak in January 2018.

About 10,500 MW of customer load was shed at the highest point, enough power to serve approximately 2 million homes, it said, adding that extreme weather caused many generating units across fuel types to trip offline and become unavailable.

‘Controlled outages will continue through today and into early tomorrow, possibly all of tomorrow,’ Dan Woodfin, director of systems operations at ERCOT, told a briefing.

The storms knocked out nearly half the state’s wind power generation capacity on Sunday. Wind generation ranks as the second-largest source of electricity in Texas, accounting for 23% of state power supplies, ERCOT estimates.

Of the 25,000-plus MW of wind power capacity normally available in Texas, 12,000 MW were out of service on Sunday morning, an ERCOT spokeswoman said.

An emergency notice issued by the regulator urged customers to limit power usage and prevent an uncontrolled system-wide outage.

The spot price of electricity on the Texas power grid spiked more than 10,000% on Monday.