What's To Blame For Widespread Texas Power Outages?

The severe winter weather that has paralyzed most of Texas created a public relations dilemma for the wind power industry, with reports that nearly half of the Lone Star State's wind turbines were frozen as a result of the abnormally cold conditions.

As a result, some critics of renewable energy are using the frozen turbines to declare wind power — as well as the wider cleantech spectrum — to be unreliable and chiefly to blame for the massive loss of electrical power across Texas.

Yet a closer look at the situation shows that while the frozen turbines should not have been disabled by the wintry weather, the turbines did not play a primary role in the state's massive power outages during the weather crisis.

What Happened: Texas has made significant investments into wind power. In 2015, wind power generation supplied 11% of the state's energy grid, but by 2020 that share rose to 23%, bypassing coal to become Texas' second-largest energy source after natural gas. According to state government data, Texas leads the nation for wind power capacity at 25,100 MW, and it is also the leader among states for both wind power-related manufacturing and wind power industry employment.

On Sunday, Feb. 14, a freakishly frigid weather pattern ripe with heavy snow and freezing rain plunged Texas into record-breaking low temperatures.

On Tuesday morning, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport recorded a reading of negative 2 F. In comparison, the weather at Alaska's Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport was 20 F.

The brutally cold weather created record-breaking demands for electrical energy.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which oversees the state's electric grid, took the unprecedented step of ordering controlled power outages on a rotating basis in order to keep the grid operational.

On Feb. 14, ERCOT President and CEO Bill Magness told the state that his agency was "dealing with higher-than-normal generation outages due to frozen wind turbines and limited natural gas supplies available to generating units."

It was soon determined that 12,000 MW of the state's 25,100 MW wind power generation went offline due to frozen turbines.

Blaming Wind Turbines: When news reports began to percolate about the frozen turbines, prominent critics of renewable energy zeroed declared the turbines as the chief reason Texans were left in the freezing dark.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson focused on the Texas power outages as the main story on his primetime talk show Monday.

"The windmills froze, so the power grid failed. Millions of Texans woke up Monday morning having to boil their water because with no electricity, it couldn't be purified," Carlson said.

Alex Epstein, founder of the Center for Industrial Progress and author of "The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels," took to Twitter.

"Here's the bottom line: the root cause of the TX blackouts is a national and state policy that has prioritized the adoption of unreliable wind/solar energy over reliable energy," he wrote.

"We know with 100% certainty that gas, coal, and nuclear plants can easily run in far more adverse conditions than TX has now. And we know with 100% certainty that even if no wind turbines had frozen they would have been nearly useless during large portions of recent weather."

The Bigger Texas Energy Picture: However, not everyone is pinning the blame solely on the wind turbines.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott noted the state's full energy resources were impacted.

"Due to the severe weather and freezing temperatures across our state, many power companies have been unable to generate power, whether it's from coal, natural gas, or wind power," he said. Furthermore, ERCOT observed that the turbines along the Gulf Coast that were not frozen the have been spinning at a higher rate than expected, which is helping to offset some of the power generation that has been lost during the weather event.

Dan Woodfin, a senior director at ERCOT, observed that frozen instruments at all energy source facilities — including natural gas, coal and nuclear power plants — contributed to the problems, with "natural gas pressure" being particular problematic for restoring power.

Mark Harral, CEO of GroupNIRE, a Lubbock-based renewable energy solutions company, told the hyperlocal Everything Lubbock news site that there was no Plan B in place in the event the turbines could not produce power.

"There also aren't enough natural gas producers in the state to make up the difference when those wind turbines aren't available," said Harral.

Texas-based wind power companies were working hard to resolve the unprecedented problems they were facing, Heather Zichal, CEO of the American Clean Power Association (ACP), a trade association that represents the wind power industry, said in a statement to Benzinga.

"The clean power industry is dedicating significant resources to help ERCOT respond to unprecedented cold weather conditions and record-setting demand that are putting immense strain on the Texas electric grid," said Zichal.

"While we continue to meet our seasonal commitments, ACP member companies are working around the clock to put additional megawatts onto the grid to help meet current electricity demand."

Zichal added it was "disgraceful to see the longtime antagonists of clean power – who attack it whether it is raining, snowing, or the sun is shining – engaging in a politically opportunistic charade misleading Americans to promote an agenda that has nothing to do with restoring power to Texas communities."

 

Photo courtesy SnappyGoat.com.