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FOX 7 Discussion: How the Texas power grid did during the recent winter storm
Doug Lewin, President of Stoic Energy, joins FOX 7's John Krinjak to discuss how the power grid did during the recent cold snap, and what to expect when another one rolls around.
AUSTIN, Texas - JOHN KRINJAK, FOX 7 AUSTIN: Well, thankfully, the Texas power grid fared well during last week's winter storm in frigid temperatures. But some experts say there are some important takeaways about how prepared our system is for future weather events. Joining us now to talk about this is Doug Lewin, president of Stoic Energy consulting here in Austin. Doug, thanks so much for being with us.
DOUG LEWIN, PRESIDENT OF STOIC ENERGY: Thanks for having me, John. Appreciate it.
JOHN: So, first of all, why did the grid hold up as well as it did? Was it because of those winterization efforts, you think? Or did we get kind of lucky?
DOUG: Yeah. Most of all, we got lucky. There were some improvements made on the power plant side. It looks like power plants did pretty well. Wind turbines did exceptionally well, but some of that was just because there wasn't nearly as much ice that would have affected either the thermal plants or the wind turbines. So mostly it was just this was more like an every two or three or four year storm as opposed to the really extreme storm we saw with Winter Storm Uri.
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JOHN: And you touched on this, but I understand that certain types of power producers kind of performed better than others. I understand there was kind of a dip in output from natural gas. Can you talk about kind of that variation?
DOUG: Yeah, there actually wasn't a dip in output, outside of like- I think there may have been- and we don't have full reports on this yet, maybe a power plant or two up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that didn't work. But mostly we did not see a dip in the output from the power plants. There was a dip in output from the Permian Basin of about 15 to 20 percent, which is not a problem. It's one of the reasons we didn't see any problems. The problem is if you have a Winter Storm Uri type event that covers the whole state, and you see output from both the Permian and the Eagle Ford shale, and you see more of a drop like 40, 50, 60 percent, as opposed to the 15 to 20 percent we saw from the Permian. That's where you really have problems. That's why myself and lots of other folks are still very concerned about a Winter Storm Uri type of event and how we're not quite ready for it yet.
AUSTIN, TX - FEBRUARY 15: The Texas Capitol is surrounded by snow on February 15, 2021 in Austin, Texas. Winter storm Uri has brought historic cold weather to Texas, causing traffic delays and power outages, and storms have swept across 26 states wit …
JOHN: Yeah. So I mean, based on what we saw here, are there some lessons that you hope that ERCOT and others in the industry should take away from how things played out here?
DOUG: Yeah, I think first and foremost, you know, there's going to be a natural gas supply winterization role at the Railroad Commission this year. Brad Jones from ERCOT is saying, you know, a lot of the places in his interviews that he really wants to see winterization there as well. He's worried about the vulnerability there. I think the other thing we really need to focus on John, in 2022, is the demand side. We lucked out that it was not nearly as cold, something like 15 degrees warmer on average across the state. But if we do get that kind of deep freeze and demand surges as it did last year, that's another major potential problem for us.
JOHN: If we saw something on the level of your say tomorrow, could the grid handle it, you think?
DOUG: I don't think so. I don't think it would be as bad as last year because I do think some improvements have been made, and I think it's important to acknowledge that there have been some improvements. But I do, as I don't think the outages would be as long-lasting or as deep. I think they would be able to roll them better and things like that. But I think it is a near certainty, at least a very high likelihood that if there was a repeat of Uri, we would see some outages again because natural gas supply does not have any winterization requirements, and we have not addressed the demand side with energy efficiency in any way, shape or form.
JOHN: All right. Doug Lewin, an energy expert here in Austin. Doug, thank you so much for joining us tonight and sharing your expertise. We appreciate it.
DOUG: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
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