Texas power grid: Will it hold up through the rest of winter?

AUSTIN, Texas - This week's arctic blast tested the Texas power grid, with ERCOT urging residents to conserve electricity not once, but twice.

In this FOX 7 Focus, FOX 7's John Krinjak goes one-on-one with ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas about how close we came to outages in Texas, and whether the state grid is prepared for an even deeper freeze.

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JOHN KRINJAK: So first I want to ask you, you know, we saw temperatures into the teens somewhere, single digits. We saw snow. We saw freezing rain, depending on where you were. How would you say the grid has handled that? How has it fared over the last few days?

PABLO VEGAS: You know, I think the grid has really stood up well to the test in this winter event. It has been cold, and that cold came in early. It came in a little lower than we were. Anybody was forecasting at the end of last week. It stressed and pushed things, but we were able to keep the lights on throughout everybody. The power generators did a fantastic job. Whether they're the thermal plants, the renewables or the newest technology. We have the batteries on the system. All of them did really well. And the Texans and consumers and businesses did really well, too, because they responded when we made that call for conservation, and we saw real impact of that.

JOHN KRINJAK: You mentioned new technology. Do you really feel the changes that have been made since the storm three years ago have bolstered the grid in situations like this?

PABLO VEGAS: Without question, it has made a significant difference. A couple of things. So, you know, now we are inspecting weatherization programs that every power plant in the state has to do every winter and every summer, and we make sure that the plants are ready to run. As a result, we saw the lowest level of forced outages on those power plants this winter. And in addition, you know, we've also got things like firm fuel supply now, which is an alternate fuel supply in case there's a gas issue. Power plants can keep running, and we have more generation resources operating on the grid today than we did at any point in time before.

JOHN KRINJAK: How close did we get to potentially having rotating outages during this event? We all get stressed out when we see the supply and demand getting a little close there in reality. How close were we to rotating outages?

PABLO VEGAS: So the forecast showed the supply and demand getting much closer than in reality we ended up getting. We got all of the commitments for the various power plants. We saw that margin improve. And then, because of the conservation, we saw an incredible response from that.

JOHN KRINJAK: So you see kind of a straight line between issuing that conservation call and people actually doing what you ask them to.

PABLO VEGAS: We definitely can see that, the impact of that, we see it on the individual. You know, in terms of the consumer class. And we also see it across businesses too, and large industrials and everybody from the mom-and-pop businesses to homeowners all the way to the big companies. We can see the impact of their response.

JOHN KRINJAK: Is there a point where it's not sustainable to constantly be asking people to conserve, where you start looking at kind of a more long-term solution to that, to that supply demand puzzle?

PABLO VEGAS: Absolutely. And it's something that we are, you know, always thinking about, is how do we continuously build our way towards meeting the future demands of this Texas grid, not just the ones of today? So we're going to have to find ways to continue to invest in a balanced set of resources, both on the supply side, as well as we want to really expand that demand response capability so that more people can participate in it with financial benefits.

JOHN KRINJAK: So you're talking about incentivizing energy efficiency, essentially, right?

PABLO VEGAS: That's right. And incentivizing that and incentivizing, you know, if you get to a period of time where we say, hey, like we've asked before, we know that during this couple of hours it's going to be really cold or it's gonna be really hot, rather than just asking somebody to conserve, having a financial incentive behind conserving during those periods of time. That's something that I think we can broaden those programs, and that's something we want to work with the Public Utility Commission and with the market at large to develop in the coming year.

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JOHN KRINJAK: I know some individual utilities are doing things like that, like Austin Energy, where, you know, if you have a smart thermostat, it can it can kind of automatically be adjusted based on whether we're in, you know, peak demand time. Is that something that could happen, or will happen on a statewide level at some point?

PABLO VEGAS: That's exactly what I'm talking about. Something just like that, where you could have people who have the kind of, you know, thermostats or the kinds of programs with their local utilities, and we could get more broad participation at large across the state.

JOHN KRINJAK: I think one of the thoughts a lot of us had during this winter weather event is, okay, it's cold. We saw a little precipitation, but it's not nearly as bad as it was back in 2021. If our supply and demand are this tight during something like this, can we get through something like we saw in 2021? And can you guarantee that we wouldn't have outages if something like that were to repeat itself?

PABLO VEGAS: There's no question that we benefited in this event from having less snow, less icing throughout the state. That was a big part of the event that happened in 2021, but I really believe that the investments and the improvements in reliability and in resiliency, the weatherization programs, I really believe those would have had a very meaningful impact if we were to have an event that had those characteristics today. Now, there's never any guarantees, because every storm is different, and every situation is different. But I know that we would be much better prepared for a storm of that caliber today than we ever have been before.

JOHN KRINJAK: What needs to happen long term? You know, we talked a little bit about some of the energy efficiency solutions, but just the fact that we keep hearing it's record demand, record demand, record demand, we keep breaking our own records, and more people are moving to Texas. That isn't slowing down. How do we keep pace with that? Or how do we catch up to that?

PABLO VEGAS: So the energy efficiency and the demand response is certainly part of the story. Then on the supply side, we're really seeing a lot of progress on that front already, when it comes to renewables, we're seeing the growth in solar and wind. Both those are coming online every year at a pretty rapid pace. Battery storage is growing incredibly. And then recently the legislature just passed a couple of laws that incentivize the development of the traditional thermal dispatchable generators like gas power plants. It's really about growing the set of supply in a balanced way so that we can meet that incredible population and business growth.