In order to add reliability to electric grids across the nation and to keep prices affordable, electric utilities across the nation will need to speed up the rate at which they are adopting new technology, CPS Energy’s President and CEO Rudy Garza said earlier this week.
Garza said the major challenge CPS Energy faces is how to “keep the lights on” while staying affordable during a panel discussion Tuesday. The panel discussion was hosted by the U.S. Energy Association, a global nonprofit that puts together discussions between industry leaders.
Garza, who assumed his position as head of San Antonio’s municipally owned electric utility following the fallout caused by Texas’ failed electric grid in February 2021, was one of 10 panelists featured in the virtual discussion. Garza said renewables are what kept the Texas grid from failing and what kept costs lower for utilities and ratepayers this summer. Relying solely on natural gas as a reliable source of energy is a mentality of the past, Garza said.
“Operators across the system are going to have to learn how to make it all work together,” he said. “Yes, we need more dispatchable power generation to back up those renewables, but it’s all got to fit together.”
Texas, which operates mostly on its own grid, has faced several close calls recently including on Wednesday, Sept. 6, when the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the grid’s operator, issued a Level 2 emergency call due to high demand around 7:30 p.m. that ended roughly two hours later.
An 11-page report submitted to the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) by ERCOT earlier this week blamed low solar and wind conditions for the close call, as well as unprecedented demand, although PUC staff asked ERCOT Thursday why it hadn’t also included the coal and natural gas plant outages in North Texas that day as well. ERCOT officials responded that will be in their next report.
Texas has continued to face unprecedented levels of energy demand this summer due to the state’s fast growth combined with abnormally long bouts of hot weather. Peak demand on Sept. 6 hit 82,705 megawatts, which was lower than its all-time peak demand record set in August, but the highest September record ever recorded by ERCOT until two days later, when peak demand hit 84,182 megawatts.
ERCOT has seen 10 new all-time peak demand records this year.
New levels of peak demand aren’t the only challenge Texas utilities are dealing with; like many utilities across the country, the number of attempted cybersecurity attacks against CPS Energy and other Texas utilities continues to grow year over year, Garza said during the panel.
Given that those pressures on the grid are unlikely to ease anytime soon, utilities will need to evolve, Garza said. That evolution will include the faster adoption of battery storage, hiring for more technical jobs and getting more advanced computer software, he said.
“Our focus really is on the transition holistically of our industry,” Garza said.
Garza added he’d like to see the funds from the federal Inflation Reduction Act distributed more quickly to local municipalities to help utilities like CPS Energy when cost is the limiting factor. The IRA contains $500 billion in new spending and tax breaks that aim to boost clean energy, reduce healthcare costs and increase tax revenues.
Appropriated last year by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden, the IRA is the U.S.’s largest investment in clean energy and climate action to date. But it’s still unclear how it will be distributed locally, Garza said.
“Understanding exactly how the projects that we plan to do down here in San Antonio are actually going to be assisted by these available buckets of money at the federal level is still really hard to get our arms around,” he said.
