Your parents – at least mine did – always told you mistakes were there to learn from, be it burnt fingers, electrocution, a bad bet etc. Whatever the mishap or misstep, there was supposedly a lesson buried in the hurt, humiliation, missing limb or digit that would be the reminder to do things differently next time.

Theoretically you already knew the end result if you didn’t.

That time-honored truism doesn’t hold fast so much for governments, though. Land wars in Asia spring to mind immediately as the premier example.

Covering their bases and preparing for emergencies is another thing governments are usually pretty crappy at – my state excepted, of course – even when it’s a drill they’ve been through however disastrously before. It doesn’t matter if it was a recent history trip through awfulness, most emergencies are encountered, bemoaned, after-action reported to death, and moved on from. Until it happens again be it three years, or thirteen, down the line.

Take Texas, for instance. Take the state energy managers ERCOT – the Electric Reliability Council of Texas – especially (“Reliability” being a subjectively descriptive term in this case, as in “depends what your definition of” is.).

They had themselves a summer of spectacular near misses as far as energy generation for Texans goes. From having to worry that a naturally occurring solar eclipse would so impact their renewable output that it would cause a power emergency…

…Texas didn’t “need” renewables to “meet peak demand” this summer because regular fossil fuel plants failed to do so. It’s because they’ve reduced their reliable capacity in favor of renewables – for starters, by shutting down 6 coal-fired plants between 2018 and 2020 without replacing the lost reliable generation capacity – that has hamstrung the grid and blown prices through the roof.

And the planning that is going into an event like this is insane, when 20 years ago, no one cared WHAT the sun did – it had zero impact on whether you could run the dishwasher.

How stupid is this?

…Next month’s eclipse presents an unprecedented challenge for the Texas grid, which has seen a surge of solar development over the last few years….ERCOT is working with solar forecast vendors to create a special model for Oct. 14 so that it can be ready to rapidly bring backup supply online during the event and then sharply curtail it once the eclipse passes. The grid operator expects to start sharing details about its plan on Oct. 5

…to issuing repeated calls for power conservation even as consumers doing all the conserving got to deal with the price spikes associated with power procurement and production in Texas.

(2/2) TXANS Update—August 24, 2023: ERCOT is requesting Texans to conserve electricity use, if safe to do so. For more information, energy-saving tips, and to sign up for #TXANS emails, visit: https://t.co/rWMslT4y8Q.

— ERCOT (@ERCOT_ISO) August 24, 2023

Summer is “hot” in TX, and air-conditioning tends to be a fact of life. And yet a grid that used to be able to handle those demands can no longer do so, even as the state’s population grows.

Thank goodness it’s getting cooler, right? The pressure will be off the grid, one would think.

Not so fast.

Our winters have been fairly mild since 2021's Great Texas Freeze, but ERCOT warns that a stormy winter this year may mean trouble for the Texas power grid. https://t.co/jNoBQ8YBOB

— KIII 3 News (@kiii3news) November 27, 2023

This sounds alarming.

Texas could face a series of power blackouts this winter if severe weather hits the southern state, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

The council has predicted a 14.4 percent chance that it could order controlled outages if Texas experiences a storm similar in nature to the late 2022 cold snap that left more than a million homes across the U.S. without power from December 22 to 25.

Controlled outages would be used if temperatures in Texas drop to sub freezing levels and last for an extended period. In January, the chances of controlled outages will grow to about 16.8 percent, ERCOT predicted. The grid operator said the relatively high chances for blackouts are still only likely in extreme winter storms, with the actual likelihood of power outages being much lower.

…ERCOT has said that in such a scenario, blackouts would be most likely at around 8 a.m., as this is when the power grid surges with people waking up for the day and beginning to using power.

No worries, though – blackouts would only start when people turned the lights on in the morning to get ready for school or work.

ONLY WHEN YOU REALLY NEED IT

Texas already had one helluva $300+B in damages winter storm in February of 2021, just in case anyone’s forgotten. Well…we know ERCOT has, because I’m not sure they’ve gone all out to prepare for another “cold” winter.

Let me refresh their memories.

Texas has added 36 more deaths to the official death toll from the February snow and ice storm, bringing the total to 246 in what was one of the worst natural disasters in the state’s history.

The Department of State Health Services disclosed the new total in a report on the storm that was released Friday and described as the “final report” in an analysis by the department’s Disaster Mortality Surveillance Unit. The deaths occurred between Feb. 11 and June 4. The figure includes people who were injured in the storm but did not die until later, and also people whose bodies were found after the storm, including during repairs of damaged homes.

The 246 deaths spanned 77 counties and included victims ranging from less than 1 year old to 102 years old, according to the report. Close to two-thirds of the deaths were due to hypothermia. Of the deaths, the report classified 148 as “direct,” 92 as “indirect” and six as “possible,” using criteria developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

ERCOT’s total failure gave rise to articles titled like this:

Austin Energy says it’s trying to better target who gets power shut off during storms

When the agency that oversees Texas’ electricity grid told Austin Energy to cut power to its customers during the February freeze, the utility company had to turn off the lights for more people than needed.

Austin Energy cuts off electricity via circuits, or lines of power connecting homes and businesses. This makes it difficult to precisely meet the amount of power the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, asks it to shut off during emergencies.

If ERCOT told Austin Energy to cut 1 megawatt of power, the utility would have to meet or exceed that amount. If the smallest circuit is 1.5 megawatts, Austin Energy would be cutting an extra half megawatt, Deputy General Manager Sidney Jackson told KUT.

According to ERCOT, 1 megawatt can power about 200 homes in Texas during peak energy demand. So cutting an additional .5 megawatts translates to cutting power for about 100 more homes.

In other words, Austin Energy has to turn off the lights to more homes than necessary.

Oh, that’s great. The “Reliability Council” has your local provider picking and choosing who gets to sit in the freezing cold and dark because they can’t provide enough power to keep everyone’s lights on.

Wind advocates – whose beloved turbines were useless during the icy misery – love to blame the natural gas plants and transfer lines for “freezing up, too!” during the ghastly cold that enveloped the state.

"Attempts to keep pace with the increased usage have seen developments in green energy such as solar or wind farms, however these are weather dependent.

Wind turbines, which account for a fifth of the state's energy, froze solid amid the bitterly cold temperatures." https://t.co/nemtvX0sdj

— Arthur Kimes (@ComradeArthur) November 24, 2023

So deeply frigid, it caused pipes inside of homes and apartments to burst when the power went out for days.

But that’s not exactly what happened. Yes, the natgas froze up, but not through any initially weather induced failing of its own. Natgas plants etc. had their own power shut down by a panicked and disorganized ERCOT team. No one had identified exactly where or what “critical” infrastructure needed to remain powered up until the situation became critical…because they’d shut the power off to it.

Too late, then.

…But the situation rapidly deteriorated as the storm bore down on Texas. At 1:20 a.m., the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state’s power grid, ordered the first cut of power to bring demand down to match an extremely low power supply as the frigid temperatures caused power plants to rapidly trip offline.

Oncor’s team, along with other utilities, began a plan to roll outages at 15- and 30-minute intervals. But just before 2 a.m., ERCOT ordered them to take even more power offline — then kept ordering more reductions. By late Monday morning, ERCOT had ordered 20,000 megawatts of power offline; Oncor’s share was 8,000 megawatts, or enough to power 1.6 million homes.

Rolling the outages “quickly became impossible,” Nye said. “We sat there praying that electrons showed up.”

With millions of Texans without power, Nye got an urgent request from DeAnn Walker, then chair of the Public Utility Commission: She needed Oncor to flip the switch back on to certain natural gas facilities that couldn’t deliver fuel to power plants without electricity. A PUC spokesperson said Walker was “ceaselessly” on the phone, calling Nye about dozens of natural gas facilities that weren’t on Oncor’s “critical” list.

That meant that Oncor, which delivers power to the Permian Basin — the state’s most productive oil and natural gas basin — had unwittingly shut off some of the state’s power supply when it followed orders to begin the outages.

The desperate scramble to power up natural gas facilities again exposed a major structural flaw in Texas’ electric grid: Oncor and other utilities didn’t have good lists of what they should consider critical infrastructure, including natural gas facilities — simply because natural gas companies failed to fill out a form or didn’t know the form existed, company executives, regulators and experts said.

Has ERCOT learned anything from the Great Freeze of 2021?

I mean, it’s hard to tell. Just two weeks ago, ERCOT announced it had cancelled plans for emergency power buys during a winter emergency and updated what they’ve done to prepare. Nowhere did I see anything on this list about actual, physical grid enhancements it had accomplished. It’s all checking lists and other people checking their lists of lists, isn’t it? The closest thing is “weatherization inspections.”

ERCOT Cancels Procurement for Additional Capacity, Provides Update on Winter Preparedness and Grid Improvements

ERCOT has canceled the procurement from the Request for Proposal (RFP) seeking additional capacity due to the limited response from the market, which included only a small 11.1 MW of potentially eligible capacity.

“The request for additional capacity was an extra layer of precaution to mitigate higher risk during extreme weather this winter,” said ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas. “ERCOT is not projecting emergency conditions this winter and expects to have adequate resources to meet demand.”

ERCOT has implemented many reforms and grid improvements since 2021, including weatherization inspections of electric generation units and transmission facilities, additional ancillary services, and firm fuel supply service.

…The RFP was based on probabilistic analysis indicating that if the ERCOT Region experienced a storm during the 2023-2024 winter Peak Load Season comparable to last year’s Winter Storm Elliott, there would be a 20% risk of ERCOT entering Energy Emergency Alert (EEA) conditions. To reduce this elevated risk, ERCOT sought to procure up to 3,000 MW of additional capacity that could be called upon if needed as an added layer of protection during peak times.

In declining to proceed with the RFP, ERCOT weighed factors such as the costs of the program, including costs of administration, and the incremental additional complexity for the Control Room operators against the very small amount of capacity that could be provided and the associated minimal reliability benefits.

…Winter Preparedness and Grid Improvements Since 2021

• Weatherization and Inspections. ERCOT is entering the third season of winter weatherization inspections with enhanced requirements for generation and transmission facilities, compared to last winter season.

• Firm Fuel Supply Service (FFSS) Phase 2. An additional source of onsite fuel for generators benefits the grid by providing a redundant, or additional, fuel source should there be a natural gas scarcity. FFSS Phase 1 created the FFSS service (deployed for the first time during Winter Storm Elliott and then again for Winter Storm Mara). Phase 2 expanded Resources that can qualify. If a Resource’s fuel service is firm and isn’t under a lower curtailment priority if there’s a curtailment event, they can now qualify.

• Scheduled Maintenance Period. ERCOT has worked with generators and transmission operators to schedule their maintenance to prepare their equipment for winter after running hard this past summer.

• Forecasting Improvements. ERCOT has been working on reducing weather forecast error by procuring additional weather forecasts and developing load forecast models that are tuned for extreme cold weather. ERCOT has also improved the forecasting software testing process related to holidays and other outlier scenarios.

• ERCOT Contingency Reserve Service (ECRS). Added in June 2023, ECRS takes advantage of Resources that can start within 10 minutes to address unexpected or rapid changes in supply or demand.

• Fast Frequency Response Service. Added in 2022, this addition to our Ancillary Services takes advantage of the capability of faster-responding Resources to respond to events.

• Improved, Transparent Communications. The Texas Advisory and Notification System (TXANS) was launched May 2023. TXANS is a communications tool to keep Texans updated on grid conditions.

• Critical Supply Chain and Critical Infrastructure Map. This map was created in 2022 to share the locations and connectivity of all the critical parts of the Texas power infrastructure.

• Improved Inter-Agency Communications. Agencies are seeing improved, ongoing communications through both the Texas Department of Emergency Management and Texas Energy Reliability Council.

All that, huh?

And not two weeks after your big press release it’s rolling blackout winter warning time?

Dang – doesn’t sound “ready” to me. Maybe they should have held onto that extra capacity they were thinking about.

I sure hope somebody’s list about who gets to keep their juice on is up to date and the emergency phone numbers are right.