Texas Wants to Know: How will our power grid respond to the summer heat?

By Baylee Friday and Chris Blake

Published July 22, 2023

NBC DFW

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."

Listen to Texas Wants to Know in the Audacy app or wherever you get your podcasts.

DOJ threatening to sue Texas over Gov. Greg Abbott deploying controversial buoys at the border

BY Paige Hubbard

PUBLISHED Fri, July 21st 2023, 10:44 PM CDT

CBS Austin

AUSTIN, Texas — The U.S. and Mexico border is once again in the spotlight over border security. The Texas Department of Public Safety tells our sister station in San Antonio, floating barriers in the Rio Grande aren't completely operational as they're still being anchored down.

The barrier is being put up in Eagle Pass and is the latest attempt by Governor Greg Abbott to secure the border. DPS lieutenant Chris Olivarez says the buoys aren't to keep people out of the U.S., they're intended to steer people away from dangerous waters and toward the ports of entry.

Since Governor Greg Abbott announced the buoys would be deployed back in June, there's been growing backlash from Texas lawmakers and human rights organizations like LULAC. Now the federal government is getting involved. The Justice Department is threatening to sue the state of Texas over those floating barriers and is giving Governor Abbott until 1:00 p.m. Monday to remove the barriers to avoid a lawsuit.

The DOJ says the fencing was placed in the Rio Grande without authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In a letter to Greg Abbott, the DOJ says, “The State of Texas’s actions violate federal law, raise humanitarian concerns, present serious risks to public safety and the environment, and may interfere with the federal government’s ability to carry out its official duties.”

After the DOJ notified Governor Abbott that they plan to take legal action over his actions to deter migrants at the border, he took to Twitter. In one tweet Abbott said Texas has the authority to defend the border under the U.S constitution adding, “We’ll see you in court, Mr. President.”

Andy Hogue is with the Travis County Republican Party. He believes the governor is taking appropriate steps to protect the southern border.

“It's just the Biden administration versus Greg Abbott, democratic versus Republican. Not entirely unexpected. Now keep in mind this is a pilot program. It's not the entirety of the Rio Grande being full of border buoys. This is a small section of the Rio Grande so this is a test balloon to try and see whether this will float,” he said.

In recent weeks there have been allegations of the barrier causing injuries. It’s claimed that a pregnant woman suffered a miscarriage after getting caught in the wire. The Texas DPS tells CBS Austin the office of the inspector general is investigating the allegations.

“If our personnel are doing anything that violates policy, they will be held accountable. There are no orders from the top that prohibit Troopers from giving water to women and children or attending to migrants who need medical attention. Additionally, we can confirm that we do not set “barrel traps” in the river. There are barrels on land wrapped in concertina wire as part of deterrent fortifications. Here is a helpful tweet, and the emails you need are attached,” Texas DPS said.

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio is now joining a list of democrats calling for the barriers to be removed. “Greg Abbott, pull these buoys out of the water now. Children are dying. People are getting hurt. By no means should these strategies be considered immigration policy or even border security. We are endangering the lives of not only migrants but law enforcement. This is reckless and cruel, plain and simple,” said Senator Roland Gutierrez.

“This is a dumb policy and we're lying to ourselves to think it’s going to control immigration,” said State Sen. Nathan Johnson.

State Sen. Nathan Johnson, D- Dallas doesn’t agree with recent laws signed by Governor Abbott to strengthen border security. He feels the crisis at the border is one that’s a deeper problem that deserves a smarter and kinder approach. He believes the state should be working to complement work already being done to address the crisis.

“There need to be employment regulations, guest worker programs, possibly an E verify. There needs to be a better system for processing asylum and better relationships with other nations. All of these things, I think, when combined, just a much more realistic humane approach is going to get us better results,” he said.

Immigration attorney Kate Lincon Goldfinch wants to remind people that the migrants at the border are human beings looking for a better life.

“These are the people who are running away from the criminals. And our laws say that we will give them an orderly way to seek asylum, not that we will drown them in the river with razor wire. That is not in line with what the laws of the United States say. It’s extremely clear that border enforcement is a federal jurisdictional issue. “It’s not acceptable on any front. Humanitarian or legal,” said Lincon Goldfinch.

The Office of the Governor issued a joint statement from Texas Border Czar Mike Banks, Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Director Steve McCraw, and Texas Adjutant General Major General Thomas Suelzer. You can find that here.

Texas Grid 'Getting Harder and Harder Every Year To Operate' — Ex-Official

An electric generator field is seen at the Austin Energy/Sand Hill Energy Center on June 20, 2023, in Austin, Texas amid extreme hot temperatures in the state. A former power official has said "aggressive" steps must be taken to reduce electricity demands during summer.

BRANDON BELL/GETTY IMAGES

BY ALEKS PHILLIPS

PUBLISHED 7/18/23 AT 5:58 AM EDT

Newsweek

Texas' electricity grid is "getting harder and harder every year to operate" as the average temperature in the state in the summer is rising along with the population, a former public utilities official has said.

Speaking to Dallas radio station KRLD on Monday, Alison Silverstein, an electricity reliability consultant and former adviser to the chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Texas, called for "aggressive" steps to reduce demand, reported to be the primary driver of power cuts.

She contrasted the outages seen in recent winters—caused by issues with production or transmission—with those during the summer, which tended to be as a result of demand outpacing supply as residents tried to stave off the effects of the heat.

It came as Texans have endured searingly hot weather since June, and the state is currently in a prolonged heatwave with temperatures consistently above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, placing pressure on the electricity grid.

The state's grid has been a matter of scrutiny since February 2021, when a winter storm killed 246 people and left millions without power. But, like other grids facing up to more regular extreme weather events, summer heat is also a concern.

"Since Texas temperatures have risen every summer for the last 30 years, and [the] Texas' population has risen every year for the last 30 years, we should expect that there will be a lot more calls for conservation because it's getting harder and harder every year to operate the grid," Silverstein said.

An Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) spokesperson told Newsweek that it will "continue to operate the grid conservatively, bringing generating resources online early to mitigate sudden changes in generation or demand."

Noting that the state's grid operator had already managed to break its own unofficial July peak capacity, they added that there could be "tight grid conditions periodically this summer."

"The grid is operating under normal conditions," the spokesperson said. "ERCOT has not issued a Voluntary Conservation Notice and is not asking Texans to conserve energy at this time."

According to the U.S. Census, Texas' population grew 43.4 percent between 2000 and 2022, while National Centers for Environmental Information data shows the average July temperature has been above the historic mean for seven of the past eight years. July 2022 recorded an average of 87.1 degrees Fahrenheit—beating the previous record set in 2011.

Silverstein said that while a lot of the rules adopted by Texas' Public Utilities Commission to reform the state's energy grid in the wake of Storm Uri—which caused 2021's outages—were targeted towards preventing a loss of supply. In hot summers, she estimated air-conditioning usage made up 50 percent of electricity demand in the state.

"The hotter it gets, the more we're all cranking the thermostat and demanding more electricity," she noted. Earlier this week, one energy provider in California called on residents to limit their air-conditioner usage at peak times.

Silverstein criticized the Texas' legislature for prioritizing energy production projects and the governor, Greg Abbott, for vetoing a measure in June which would have adopted stronger energy efficiency standards for new-build homes in the state, reducing electricity demand before people move in.

Abbott suggested at the time he was not against the bill, but wanted the legislature to prioritize property tax cuts that would make homeowning easier. The bill, SB 2453, would have saved residents $174 a year on utilities, a 2021 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory study found.

Silverstein characterized her reaction to this move as "extreme disappointment," but said that the bill was "only one of the things that should have been done" and that it "would have done nothing to fix the house that you're sitting in today."

She added: "Instead of just trying to fix supply, we need to be much smarter and aggressive about fixing demand."

Newsweek approached the office of the Texas governor via email for comment on Tuesday.

"We're going on 30 million people here. Summers are getting hotter, winters are getting colder; cold snaps are longer, heatwaves are longer," Nathan Johnson, a Democratic state senator, told the radio channel.

"People are consuming more power to stay warm and to stay cool and, meanwhile, we have high energy demand industries here including petrochemical refineries[...] semiconductor manufacturing, automobile manufacturing—these things draw a ton of power.

"So we have a steeply increasing population, we have a steeply increasing demand on our electricity from industrial processes—it would be political negligence to not look at those curves and anticipate for the power that we're going to need."

However, he noted that answering questions about capacity and generation were "super hard," with experts offering conflicting opinions that posed a "huge challenge" for legislators.

Texas has been bringing more energy production online in recent years, from a diverse range of sources. The state has a growing solar and wind industry that is anticipated to account for nearly half of its energy needs in 2035, and has the second largest-battery storage capacity of all states.

Update 07/26/23, 3:30 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include comment from an ERCOT spokesperson.