Renewable Subsidies Causing Reliability Challenges

By Laurie A. Luebbert

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) released a statement last week noting that unusually high temperatures predicted for the weekend and this week would likely lead to an increased demand for electric power. 

Texas might be the focal point now, but it’s not a challenge for the Lone Star State alone.

In light of rising temperatures, ERCOT did not request that residents curtail energy use, the warning pauses any planned maintenance on power plants to ensure power remains consistent, the Austin Journal reported.

“If we see triple digits drag into Monday, we’ll probably be pretty close to the edge to whether we have enough [power] supply for demand,” Doug Lewin, president of Stoic Energy, told Fox 7. 

The pause in maintenance is a concern because this is typically the best time of year to handle such things.

“It’s this time of year when we’re clear of winter storms, and we think we’re clear of really severe heat waves, that we take off the power plants for planned maintenance,” Lewin said. “No one wants those plants off for maintenance in the middle of July.” 

While ERCOT said it planned to deploy all the tools available to it to manage the grid reliably, the stress on the network has put the state system under the microscope. Critics are blasting the state for not looking for better ways to serve the people.

“Texas’ refusal to deal with renewable energy subsidies continues to harm reliability on the Texas grid, and cost Texans billions of dollars,” Bill Peacock, policy director for the Energy Alliance, said, according to the Austin Journal. “More than $66 billion has been invested in renewable energy in Texas over the last 20 year. If not for generators chasing the more than $22 billion of renewable subsidies, that money could have been invested in reliable generation that would have largely addressed the problem Texas is facing this weekend.”

ERCOT asked power plants across the region to postpone planned outages and to return from outages already in progress in order to serve Texans during this period and early projections indicated there would be sufficient generation to meet this high demand for electricity. 

Texans have become familiar with uncertainty surrounding the reliability of electricity and Peacock asserts that this was completely preventable. Of more concern, though, is that such crunches are not restricted to Texas. A recent article by the Wall Street Journal noted that concerns over reliable generation have become increasingly common across the United States, in part due to increased reliance on renewable generation.

California recently warned about supply shortfalls this summer, which would be heightened by more extreme temperatures. The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), which operates a power grid across 15 states and Manitoba, Canada, previously warned of supply issues that may fail to meet demand. According to the Wall Street Journal, the risk of energy shortages continues to rise in part due to traditional energy generators being retired more quickly than they can be replaced by renewable generation.

“Every market around the world is trying to deal with the same issue,” Brad Jones, interim chief executive of ERCOT, said in the Journal. “We’re all trying to find ways to utilize as much of our renewable resources as possible, and at the same time make sure that we have enough dispatchable generation to manage reliability.” 

MISO Chief Executive John Bear told the Journal that alternative energy sources need to be looked at with an honest evaluation of risk.

“I am concerned about it,” Bear said when asked about increased grid-failure risk in the near future. “As we move forward, we need to know that when you put a solar panel or a wind turbine up, it’s not the same as a thermal resource.”

The Wall Street Journal noted that Texas is considering a shift in its energy market that would favor energy generators by paying them in advance to cover projected energy needs rather than just paying for what energy is used. The move to reform the grid comes in reaction to blackouts during Winter Storm Uri that left Texans dead and resulted in billions in damages. 

This article originally appeared in the Austin Journal