“The ERCOT grid has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union,” said Hirs.
Energy Department, in response to an ERCOT request, issued an order late Monday authorizing power plants throughout the state to run at maximum output levels, even if it results in exceeding pollution limits.Įd Hirs, an energy fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Houston, blamed the failures on the state’s deregulated power system, which doesn’t provide power generators with the returns needed to invest in maintaining and improving power plants. An estimated 34,000 megawatts of power generation - more than a third of the system’s total generating capacity - had been knocked offline by the extreme winter weather amid soaring demand as residents crank up heating systems. Video: Houston Chronicle Photo Staffĭan Woodfin, ERCOT’s senior director of system operations, said the rolling blackouts are taking more power offline for longer periods than ever before. In the midst of a record-breaking winter storm, Houstonians woke up to a blanket of snow in February 2021, even on the city's busiest roads. But for us to move forward, we have got to get generation back onto the grid. But their work takes time and I don’t know how long it will take. “The generators are doing everything they can to get back on.
“How long is it going to be? I don’t know the answer,” said Kenny Mercado, executive vice president at the Houston utility. It said customers experiencing outages should be prepared to be without power at least through Monday.
The forced outages are expected to last at least through part of Tuesday, the state grid manager said.ĬenterPoint Energy, the regulated utility that delivers electricity to Houston-area homes and provides natural gas service, started rolling blackouts in the Houston region at the order of state power regulators. More than 4 million customers were without power in Texas, including 1.4 million in the Houston area, the worst power crisis in the state in a decade. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which is responsible for scheduling power and ensuring the reliability of the electrical network, declared a statewide power generation shortfall emergency and asked electricity delivery companies to reduce load through controlled outages. Natural gas shortages and frozen wind turbines were already curtailing power output when the Arctic blast began knocking generators offline early Monday morning.
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