Texas summers are hot. Really hot. As in, fry-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk kind of hot. However, unless you’re an especially precocious kid, most of us don’t observe the state’s unforgiving heat in terms of yolks and egg whites. Instead, we experience the Texas summer as Willis Carrier, the inventor of modern air conditioning, intended — indoors.
Oh, the cool, almost sweet-tasting air of the AC. Its constant hum is music to every Texan’s ears. Yet, it’s easy to forget about the few days each summer when the Texas electric grid works at maximum capacity. These are the days when the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has to consider calling for rolling brownouts because of the increased demand.
Without electricity, a dead AC is essentially no AC. And no air conditioning in Texas is a mad cry for help.
When the Texas Electric Grid Cried for Help
When the price of electricity in Texas hit its legal limit of $9,000 per megawatt-hour on August 12th, 2019, you would have thought that every possible electricity generator would have rushed to pump out power to keep the ACs humming. Instead, all the coal-fired power plants retired and went home, and although wind supposedly RSVP’d, the renewable power source was ultimately a no-show.1
Fortunately, with demand on that sweltering day cresting at 74,5000 megawatts, Texas barely scraped by with just 2,300 megawatt-hours left in reserve.2
But besides receiving a generic-seeming text message with a request to conserve power, your average Texas electricity customer wasn’t affected because they were on a fixed-rate plan. And that’s a good thing for retail electricity providers and customers alike!
But for customers who allowed the wholesale power market to set their prices, there was a dramatic spike in their bill (and their frustration). That’s what happens when an energy company directly ties the price of their electricity to the market price of electricity — which, remind you, peaked at $9,000 per megawatt-hour that August afternoon.
Big Changes are Underway for Texas’s Energy Portfolio
We expect to see more coal plants being shut down and replaced by more environmentally friendly renewable sources of energy generation, particularly wind and solar, to meet the growing demand from consumers on the electric grid. In fact, wind and solar might even follow ERCOT’s recommendation and take a symbiotic approach when it comes to generating electricity, mainly because they generate their electricity at different times of day.
Finally, we expect solar to take center stage when it comes to meeting load demand during peak summer months. So, while wind may be front and center at this moment, we are confident that solar will play a much more important role in the transition to a clean energy economy taking over Texas.
Sources:
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-26/sometimes-a-greener-grid-means-a-40-000-spike-in-power-prices
- https://www-houstonchronicle-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.houstonchronicle.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/amp/The-competitive-Texas-electric-grid-proves-14482970.php
- https://www.seia.org/state-solar-policy/texas-solar
- http://www.ercot.com/content/wcm/lists/164134/Solar_One_Pager_FINAL.pdf
- http://www.ercot.com/news/releases/show/181248
- http://www.ercot.com/gridinfo/resource