A proposed plan to overhaul the Texas power grid has drawn skepticism from experts & legislators. Under the proposal, power generators would be paid to ensure they have enough reserve electricity to power the grid in times of high demand.
Sign up for The BriefTexas lawmakers and experts who study the state’s power grid aren’t thrilled with a proposal by state energy officials aimed at preventing future widespread outages such as the one during the 2021 winter storm.
The Texas Legislature last year ordered the commission to overhaul the state’s energy market, which functions mostly off of supply and demand, in the wake of the winter storm. Texas’ electrical grid nearly collapsed as ice and snow blanketed the state. Below-freezing temperatures caused the demand for electricity to surge, triggering widespread power outages that left millions of Texans in the dark without heat for several days. Hundreds of people died as a result.
, R-New Braunfels, said during a Thursday hearing of the Senate Business and Commerce Committee, adding that the additional costs of the plan will ultimately be paid by power customers.Senators expressed concerns about making the state’s power customers pay more for an untested system on top of— costs that energy experts have said Texans will be paying off for decades.
But observers and some lawmakers have pointed to what they call flaws in E3’s report, chief among them the fact that the consultant did not take into account weather conditions as severe as those that caused blackouts during last year’s winter storm. Without that, experts say, it’s difficult to know how the grid would hold up during extreme cold or heat as a result of any change — or how much consumers’ energy bills would go up.
But climate change is making weather patterns more erratic, said Silverstein, the former PUC adviser, prompting demand to spike unexpectedly as it did during Uri and this year’s early-arriving heat wave.
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