By Baylee Friday and Chris Blake
Published July 22, 2023
As the number of 100-plus degree days pile up and Texans continue to set new records for energy demand, it begs the question: Can our power grid keep up with our growing population?
"We cannot build power plants as fast as people move in here and buy new air conditioners, or keep old air conditioners limping along," former advisor to the chair of the Public Utility Commission of Texas Alison Silverstein said. "As new businesses show up here and expand their usage of electricity, they're more and more things that we have to juggle operationally to keep the power reliable."
Even though Texas' population surpassed 30 million last year, joining California as the only state with as many people, state Sen. Nathan Johnson (D-Dallas) said he wasn't overly concerned with the grid's reliability this summer.
"Among other reasons, renewable power has been very steady. The wind has been sufficient to keep our mammoth fleet of wind turbines going," he said. "The sun obviously is shining brightly, brilliantly, and with a great deal of heat. But that's also providing solar power, including at some peak demand times late in the day."
The Texas Senate, of which Johnson is a part, sent a pair of energy bills to the House that did not pass early in this year's session. Meanwhile, in early May ERCOT officials warned that demand could outpace supply this summer. But just a few weeks later, they reversed course and said they had confidence in the grid.
"I believe that the change in policy was political and they were putting a spin on the available story because the legislature was in session and they were being told by some of the politicians whom they report to that they wanted to hear messages that supported state bills about let's build more power plants," Silverstein said.
ERCOT declined an interview request for this episode but issued the following statement.
"ERCOT will continue to operate the grid conservatively, bringing generating resources online early to mitigate sudden changes in generation or demand. ERCOT will continue to use all operational tools available, including implementation of new programs, like the new ERCOT Contingency Reserve Service (ECRS), as well as executing previous sessions’ legislative reforms (like summer and winter weatherization inspections). Depending on weather conditions and generation output, we could see tight grid conditions periodically this summer. ERCOT will continue to monitor conditions and keep Texans informed."
While the debate on which kind of energy to generate and how to pay for it was up for debate, the need to become more energy efficient was not.
"You leave the house for more than four hours, turn your thermostat up four degrees, and you'll save a lot of electricity when you're not at home," said J.P. Dowling of Houston-based Reliant Energy. "One thing we recommend to everybody is get an annual fact check to make sure it's running efficiently. And that way your electricity bills will be lower, even as it's working hard to keep people in your home."
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