Four years after deadly blackout, doubts remain reliably in Power Grid in Texas: NPR

Electric lines near Houston, Texas, about the electric grid of the state.

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Departure of the lease

DAVID J. Phillip / AP / AP

Austin – On February 2021 Electricity went out of Shah’s family house in Northwest Austin while the temperature dipped below the days. They feel lucky to have a gas fireplace that keeps working, and stayed warmly sitting around it covered with sheets.

After the Matriarch family, 85-year-old Manjula, began showing signs of distress. His children called an ambulance, but he fell into hypothermia in the hospital.

He is one of at least 246 people whose deaths say the state is linked to winter storms and blackout days that break Texas in that week.

“Last day I was awake and, of course, began to think of my mom,” Minal Sah said, Kut last week. “You ask yourself … What can you do more? Do I do the score to you.”

Since blackout, Sah says his neighborhood is better prepared for emergencies. Many buy the generators at home. However, they are nervous when a winter storm comes.

“It’s just a little concern, you know, hope that power doesn’t get lost at this time, “he said.

To reassure nervous Texans, state leaders focus on growing power generation since blackout. In a bulged this month, Texas Governor Greg Abbott considered public funds that gives incentives to build Plants of natural gas power That can make 10,000 power megawatts.

“That’s enough to power more than two million homes,” Abbott said.

But there’s a catch. Texas The State only below 48 with no significant connections to neighboring electric powers. That means growing in Texas energy demand should be fulfilled by the new power generation in Texas. Recent, lawmakers suggested additional energy incentives each session in the Legislature.

“We need to add more power to this session to better strengthen our grid,” added to the Governor.

Ercot saw (potential) storm clouds

On Thursday, the state’s grid operator, the Court of Electric Extraction in Texas releases it Capacity, Request & Reserve Reportlooking at possible grid conditions in the future.

The examination includes an intense scenario in which extensive growth in need of energy in the state supply available in early 2026.

Energy analysts doubt that energy demand will grow as soon as possible in that scenario.

“I never thought all of this demanded show,” says Joshua Rhodes, a research scientist with UT Austin who studied the grid. “I don’t think this is possible physically this need to show.”

Rhodes said the new ercot forecast is based on recent orders from the Texas legislature to include additional “speculative” developmental development.

For example, he said, if a data center considered five different locations to open the Texas store, “should consider the law as all the data centers come.”

While the new forecast model makes the report less useful for analysts and electricity companies, he says it can accept lawmakers who are eager to encourage many fuel plants.

“If you could look like it looked like drowning in the sky, it’s easier to do the case for doing so,” Rhodes said.

‘Political Reward’

A reliable energy system involves more than the construction of new electric plants, and the analysts say that the state has improved the system progress.

After blackout, lawmakers order the patterns of harvesting time to help with electric plants running cold, helping some electric plants to keep on the fuel return.

Rhodes also said A boom of solar power helped meet peak demand, especially in summer, and A boom of Utility Scale Energy Storage Helped year-prison, though it occurred with the majority without the support of state lawmakers.

“Texas is not (built solar farms and battery storage) for a factor of energy transfer,” so does it build things here.“

But the critics of the current state leadership says that many more do.

Conservationists referred to that Texas does not improve energy efficiency patterns since 2021 blackout. State lawmakers and regulators often reject the idea of ​​participating in the electric power, something that the federal owners suggest.

The post-blackout, lawmakers also reject suggestions to increase the management of the state’s natural gas supply in order to ensure plants of power if necessary.

“It seems like a political appetite to address that aspect of the gas industry here in Texas,” as the energy monitor for Texas’s electric gradory council.

Finally, the Rhodes Scientist Sciency Sciency Science, says the hardest test of what is changed by the grid power of suffering in 2021.

With severe cold fruits Hitting the state more oftenThat is not a matter of minal shah, the woman who died to her mother in 2021, wanted to be together.

So, earlier this week, he rode a plane for an association with older friends.

Sahh said they decided against gathering Austin.

“We cannot trust in time,” says Sah. “And we cannot trust whether we have power or not.”

They spend February in Florida instead.

Mose Buchele is the host to The attachment of political power and the Texas blackout.