The state’s electric grid operator lost control of the power supply Monday morning as 2 million Texas households didn’t have heat or other electric appliances working at home while a massive winter storm delivered freezing temperatures across the state.
When the state’s grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, began implementing rolling blackouts at 1:25 a.m. Monday, the outages were intended to be implemented on a rolling basis — up to 45 minutes per affected area, according to the ERCOT.
Instead, some Texans in Austin, Houston and other cities were without power into Monday afternoon and all morning since even before ERCOT called for the rolling blackouts. And some companies that deliver electricity to households and businesses have told customers to expect to be without power through at least the end of the day as they work to restore power generating units that went offline during the storm.
Jackie Sargent, the general manager for Austin Energy, said Monday afternoon that based on information from ERCOT, the local power outages could extend into Tuesday afternoon.
“We are aware of where our system is at, and we are operating with the constraints and the direction of ERCOT,” she said. “ERCOT has said that based on what they are looking at that, this situation is likely to continue through the night and possibly into the afternoon tomorrow. So it depends on what we do as consumers in managing our load, our consumption of electricity.”
The electricity grid was designed to be in high demand during the summer, when Texans crank their air conditioning at home. But some of the energy sources that power the grid during the summer are offline during the winter. So when Texans stayed home during the storm on Sunday and demanded record amounts of electricity, the state’s energy system could not keep up.
Some of the energy sources powering the grid were knocked out by the inclement weather, most of which were facilities run by gas, coal or nuclear energy.
“Most of the plants that went offline during evening and morning today were fueled by one of those sources,” said Dan Woodfin, senior director of system operations at ERCOT.
Wind turbines, which provide a much smaller source of energy for the state’s power grid, were iced over and also out of commission.
The storm that hit Texas is rare for both its scope and its intensity. On Sunday, the National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for all 254 counties.
The storm has shut down much of the state. Numerous roads are iced over, many schools have closed and, at Gov. Greg Abbott’s request, President Joe Biden declared a federal emergency declaration across the state. Despite Abbott’s request, Turner, the Houston mayor, said the state needs to take responsibility for what happened.
“The state must own and explain the magnitude of these power outages across the State,” Turner tweeted Monday.
Abbott didn’t publicly address the widespread outages until 1:29 p.m., more than 12 hours after hundreds of thousands of Texans began losing power.
“Many power generation companies’ facilities froze overnight and shut down their ability to generate power,” Abbott tweeted. “They are working to get power back on line.”
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