We Got the Power - With New Reliability Rules, Is Texas Ready for an Extreme Uri-Like Winter?

The energy landscape in Texas has undergone significant changes in the two years since the calamitous events of Winter Storm Uri in February 2021. The extreme weather wreaked havoc on the state’s electric generation and natural gas systems, and subsequent investigations resulted in two reform bills — Senate Bill 2 and Senate Bill 3 — aimed at installing new leadership at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the electric grid operator, and requiring state regulators to develop rules and standards to address the points of failure in electricity and natural gas infrastructure and operations. Since the bills were signed into law in June 2021, oil-and-gas, electric-grid and utility monitors have adopted a number of requirements, some more prescriptive than others. In today’s RBN blog, we highlight what has changed and where there are still potential gaps.

This blog is based on extensive discussions at the Texas Energy Symposium a couple of weeks ago about emergency preparedness and winter reliability in the Lone Star State. The Symposium — which was hosted by the Energy Bar Association and the University of Texas Law School, partly sponsored by RBN, and organized by Rick Smead, head of our Advisory Services Group — brought together industry and regulatory experts to provide clarity on where things stand. Given Texas’s role in power markets, as a leading producer of natural gas, a key player in the global gas market as an exporter of LNG, and a huge source of wind and solar power, the changes being made will have impacts far beyond the state’s borders.

As freezing weather descends on Texas this week, no doubt many Texans can’t help but flash back to Uri’s devastating impact. Reams of reports and articles have been written in the past couple of years to unravel the confluence of factors that led to just about every domino in the electricity and natural gas delivery mechanisms falling, or at least teetering on the brink of collapse. So, we’ll refrain from yet another blow-by-blow. However, it’s important to remember that it wasn’t just one thing that triggered the event but that many elements of Texas’s extensive gas and electric infrastructure failed to perform — a Perfect Storm of factors, as we described it in a blog written just as the worst of the storm was behind us and Texas was starting to thaw.

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About the song

“We Got the Power” was written by Damon Albarn, Jehnny Beth, and Noel Gallagher. It appears as the 20th song on Gorillaz’s fifth studio album, Humanz. Released as a single in March 2017, it went to #13 on the Billboard Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart and #38 on the Billboard Alternative Airplay chart. The song features vocals from Jehnny Beth from the British post-punk band Savages; Noel Gallagher, former guitarist and songwriter in Oasis; and American rapper D.R.A.M. Personnel on the record were: Damon Albarn (vocals, synthesizer, drums), Jean-Michel Jarre (synthesizer), The Twilite Tone (drums), Samuel Eggleton (bells), and Jehnny Bath, Noel Gallagher and D.R.A.M. (vocals).

Humanz was recorded between September 2015 and December 2016 at Studio 13 in London, Mission Sound in Brooklyn, JM Jarre Studio in Paris, Gee Jam Studios in Port Antonio (Jamaica), Feng Shui Studio in Hollywood, Upstairs Studio in Atlanta, Chicago Recording Company in Chicago, and Thomas Crown Studios in Virginia Beach, VA. Produced by Gorillaz, The Twilite Tone and Remi Kabaka Jr., the LP was released in April 2017 and went to #1 on the Billboard Top Rock chart and #2 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. It has been certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. The album featured collaborations with Jehnny Beth, Grace Jones, D.R.A.M., Noel Gallagher, Anthony Hamilton, Mavis Staples, Pusha T, and De La Soul. It earned the group a Brit Award in 2018. Nine singles were released from the LP.

Gorillaz are an English virtual band formed in London in 1998 by musician Damon Albarn and visual artist Jamie Hewlett. Their music often features collaborations with a wide assortment of featured artists. Albarn is a member of the Britpop band Blur, but with Gorillaz he explores a variety of musical styles, including hip-hop, electronica and world music. Gorillaz has released eight studio albums, three compilation albums, 11 EPs and 43 singles. They have won one Brit Award, one Grammy Award, and two MTV Video Music Awards. They continue to record and tour with a rotating cast of characters.

Wind of Change - Reliability Efforts, Renewables Help ERCOT Tame Cold Snaps Three Years After Uri

Author Ellen Chang

Everyone in Texas remembers the infamous Winter Storm Uri of three years ago. What started out as a simple cold snap for many quickly turned into something far more serious: the biggest power outage in state history, with billions of dollars in property damage and hundreds of lives lost. Since then, the expected arrival of frigid temperatures has been met with some trepidation, but the critical failures of February 2021 have so far been avoided in subsequent storms. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the steps the state has taken in recent years to weatherize its power grid, show why January’s cold snap turned out to be no big deal, and explain why renewables are playing an increasingly important role in grid reliability during extreme weather conditions.

Mon 7/26/21 - Blog

Natural Gas

Can We Just Talk? - Symposium Explores How Natural Gas Fits into ERCOT Reliability

Author Rick Smead

As nobody in Texas will soon forget, in February of this year freezing temperatures across the southern U.S. hammered energy markets and resulted in widespread and long-lasting blackouts across the Energy Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) power region. Life for many Texans came to a standstill for a week until power could be restored. The resulting economic damages have been estimated in the billions. Many people, rightfully, questioned how an energy-rich state like Texas could have been so affected. And then the blame-game started. Lacking a forum of qualified experts, productive discussions took a back seat to self-serving rhetoric, special-interest advocacy, and political posturing. But if real solutions were going to be found, it would take more than finger-pointing. It would take a meeting of experts whose primary focus was a resolution, rather than a constituency. Fortunately for Texans, that’s what they got two weeks ago. In today’s blog, we take you through the symposium and its outcome, particularly regarding the role of natural gas.

Thu 8/22/24 - Blog

Power

If I Ever Lose My Faith In You - Texas Turns to Performance Credit Mechanism to Boost ERCOT Reliability

Author Lynne Fowler

In Texas, rising power demand, increasing dependence on variable-output renewables, and declining availability of dispatchable fossil-fired plants to back up wind and solar have left the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) power grid in a pickle. As part of its response, the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) adopted a tool called the Performance Credit Mechanism (PCM) to help ensure the grid will be able to meet a yet-to-be-defined reliability standard. But while key metrics for the PCM have been identified, the details will determine which dispatchable resources will be supported with additional revenue, how much the whole approach will cost, and how effective it might be. In today’s RBN blog, we explore the debate ahead of the PUCT’s August 29 meeting — where it is expected to finalize rules around the PCM — and explore the difficulty of compensating generators annually so that they are also there for those once-in-10-year events.

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