As Texas' electric grid prepares to face its biggest cold-weather test since the deadly...
Matt Pistner, VP of Operations for NRG, pauses as he talks about the WA Parish power plant on Friday, Oct. 14, 2022 in Richmond.As Texas' electric grid prepares to face its biggest cold-weather test since the deadly February 2021 winter storm, ERCOT, the state's nonprofit grid operator, has advised generators to prepare for a harsh cold blast this week.
The cold blast, still more than two days away, could create more demand than officials had anticipated for a winter day. As of Monday evening, officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the grid manager, said demand during the upcoming burst of cold was expected to peak at about 9 a.m. Friday at more than 69,312 megawatts — almost 1,900 megawatts more than the grid manager expected for this time of year but not as much as it predicted for some of its more extreme winter scenarios.
Troubles at generating sites likely won't be as widespread this week as they were in 2021, said David Tuttle, a research associate with the Energy Institute at University of Texas at Austin, because of the actions officials took in the wake of that freeze. ERCOT workers this season have inspected 200 facilities — including new generators and those that have had cold-weather issues in the past, said Woody Rickerson, ERCOT's vice president of system planning and weatherization. Generators are required to submit winter readiness declarations to ERCOT affirming that they're ready for freezing weather.The inspections being done now are more thorough than those before February 2021, said Matthew Pistner, vice president of operations for NRG.
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