For the second year in a row, Texas is experiencing a brutal summer with record-breaking temperatures that are once again testing the limits of the state’s electric grid as residents crank up their air conditioners.
So far this year, Texas has unofficially broken its record for energy demand five times — pushed by Texas’ exploding population and economic growth. However, the state’s grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, has reported enough power supply to meet surging needs, largely due to renewable sources, said Pablo Vegas, ERCOT’s president and CEO.
Vegas gave a brief presentation Tuesday to members of the Texas Power Public Association during a meeting at the Westin Riverwalk hotel.
Following the presentation, Vegas told San Antonio reporters it’s “very possible” that Texas will continue to break energy demand records this summer, but said he’s not particularly concerned about it at this point. While demand topped 82,592 megawatts on July 18, ERCOT has up to 97,000 megawatts of resource capacity available for peak summer load, according to its summer 2023 Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy.
But Vegas displayed a graphic during his presentation that showed a growing gap between energy demand and ERCOT’s “dispatchable thermal generation.” It shows that wind and solar are the main reasons the grid hasn’t had the problems it did during Winter Storm Uri in February 2021. Dispatchable thermal generation is power generated from traditional conventional resources, such as coal, natural gas and nuclear.
“When folks ask me what keeps me up at night, this is the picture that I have in my mind,” Vegas said.
Without growth in its dispatchable energy capacity, the state’s grid is not necessarily reliable, Vegas said. Texas is at a place now where it is depending on renewable sources to meet demand, which means there is a real risk of not having enough energy supply if the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing, Vegas said.
“If there’s not enough intermittent resources at a point in time, there’s a risk that we’re not going to have enough supply — and that’s a real risk and that’s what keeps me up at night,” he said.
Vegas said he’s not indicting the growth of renewables in Texas as negative, adding that they’ve played an important role in the market over the past year. But he said the state needs more dispatchable sources to come online to help keep the grid “balanced.”
For that reason, he applauded the Legislature’s efforts this past session to incentivize the construction and operation of more oil and natural gas plants.
But building more oil and gas plants isn’t the only way to make the grid more reliable, said Michael E. Webber, professor of energy resources at the University of Texas at Austin. Webber said adding more generation capacity, in general, will make the grid more reliable, as would implementing a statewide response demand program or incorporating more energy storage into the equation.
“There’s a lot of ways to improve grid reliability. Gas is just one tool in the toolbox, and we need to use all the tools we have,” he said. “You wouldn’t use a screwdriver for something you need to be using a hammer for.”
Political sentiment in Texas strongly favors oil and gas, though, Webber said, despite the fact that currently, the market supports cheap, clean energy such as solar power.
“Generally, we don’t need more gas — but we do need more capacity,” Webber said.
