![]() Bush administration when he was president. He was George Bush’s energy guru he headed FERC up during the George H.W. So they’re kind of keeping their powder dry for now.īut I talked to Pat Wood. At the same time, Congress has a bill, but it hasn’t even been introduced yet. There’s rulemaking at FERC where they’re sort of thinking about creating a rule. Like I said, this is all very preliminary. Well, so far the Public Utility Commission is staying quiet. It wouldn’t have stopped them, but it might have, you know, reduced how many people suffered from them and how long they lasted.Īre there any clues as to whether lawmakers or energy regulators in Texas are getting ready to fight this rule change? What are you hearing on that score? One woman I spoke to is a former FERC adviser said it would have made a significant difference, though putting a number to it is difficult on something like that. There’s a whole bunch of different analysis out there. Has it been quantified? You know, is it clear how much the blackouts of 2021 might have been alleviated had Texas’ grid been connected to other states? So theoretically, in that scenario, you could have had power coming from Oklahoma, Louisiana, that might have helped reduce the scale of the blackout in Texas. What they’re not so good at is cold temperatures like we saw back in Uri. All the power plants in Texas are really geared up to operate in extreme heat, that being a steady, regular part of Texas summer. Texas is actually really good at operating in the summertime. And so you don’t have that sort of constant supply of power that you enjoy with coal. I mean, all around the country, there’s a lot of concern right now that everyone’s facing the same problems: all the coal plants are retiring they’re being replaced by wind and solar power, which is great for the climate, but only operate when there’s wind or sun. I’m curious, though, would we be any better off this summer, for example? Do you know? It’s my understanding that ERCOT’s warning that this week could be a tough one for the state’s power grid. » GET MORE NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE: Sign up for our weekly ‘Talk of Texas’ newsletter As extreme weather increases, as we have more renewables coming online, it makes more sense to have more transfer capacity between grids. Texas is way down there less than 1% of Texas’ power capacity is actually interconnected with other grids.īut in general, there is a belief in the federal government at all levels that these grids need to be more interconnected. Right now, most power grids around the country don’t have that much interconnection – at best, 8% or 9%, really. What they’re talking about is – and this is very early stages – creating some sort of minimal interconnection arrangement. What exactly is entailed in this proposal that would hook Texas’ grid up to other networks? That allows the Public Utility Commission to decide how power prices are set in Texas to, you know, theoretically optimize the Texas economy – something that other states don’t have, where they’re subject to the authority of what’s called the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is making the rules we’re talking about now. Texas is not it, for some time now, has operated its own power grid within its own state lines. James Osborne: Well, most power grids around the country are under the authority of the federal government. Texas Standard: First, can you remind folks why Texas isn’t connected to other states’ grids, unlike the rest of the country? This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity: James Osborne, a Washington-based economics correspondent for the Houston Chronicle, spoke to the Texas Standard about the potential rule change. ![]() Texas has managed its own grid for decades, but that could change: Federal regulators are now considering a rule that would force the state to connect to other grids. ![]() That allows an easier exchange of power, and ideally minimal time in the dark. The rest of the lower 48 states are part of either the Eastern or Western Interconnection, as the grids are called. One of the reasons why the outage lasted so long, according to some experts, is that Texas’ electric grid is essentially an island. The deep freeze caused by Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 knocked out electricity for millions of Texans for days on end.
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