Texas Struggles to Keep Up With Power Demand
It is almost August. That means Texans are avoiding the heat, air conditioners are cranking and electrical power demand is going through the roof.
Hopefully, the power will stay on.
Texas likes to be No. 1 at everything. But we are currently dead last when it comes to the reliability of our electrical system, according to a recent assessment by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, a group that keeps tabs on the country’s power situation, with the exception of Alaska and Hawaii.
That means that California — yes, California — is less likely to experience systemwide blackouts this summer than ...
Comments (13)
D W
not sure why we will see any increase in electricity production. because it will cost billions to do that, and companies can earn more by not doing it and they wont run the risk of spending billions to make a little more in a few years. no business would ever invest that much with no real 'guarantee' that they will make any more later. so what will happen is Texas will have the highest rates in the nation. and jobs will start to leave the state as other businesses wont want to have that high expense. think not? its already happened, Alcoa a high energy user, closed a plant already because of high rates
Bonnie McGuire
Dead last in healthcare and now this too? So much for effective leadership.
Tony Scott Sevilla via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Haha, I thought deregulation that was passed a few sessions ago was suppost to deal with higher prices?
Adam W Vanek via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Or build more power plants. More jobs, more power.
Kipling Oren via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I vote for the former. Let the pricing mechanism work in a free market.
Mary Muna via Texas Tribune on Facebook
It is the water bill that is hurting. Southwest water out of CA, charges exorbitant fees. A 30 dollar water bill costs over 200?
Matthew Nixon via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Mitigation=true cost and maximum efficiency
Candyce Byrne via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Hardly the only options. Conservation is excellent and involves encouraging better building practinces, but in addition this is the perfect time to hasten the transition to sustainable power sources. We're not going to run out of sunshine.
Audrey Fisher via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Anyone see what was not being even mentioned? No talk of SOLAR or WIND. Prices are going down - and the middle man will still get rich, TX is going to have it's own In-STATE ENRON with Dallas v. Houston or Austin v. SanAntonio....someone please wake up Perry and tell him that there are alternatives, but only if one gets their head OUT!
Rudy Gonzales
Texas is dead last in reliability of our electrical system. This should never have happened. ERCOT, who is charged with the reliability of Texas' electrical power grid has usurped by the TEA-Republican power structure running the state. ERCOT has failed Texas residents! Texas' electrical power grid is based on natural gas prices.
The Conservative "Deer in the head lights" governor and the gross failure of ERCOT to allow the building of coal powered units, smacks of partisan politics on steroids. There has been a steady decline in the quality of representation for the people of Texas in Austin from the current "conservatives" in office.
con·serv·a·tive? ?[kuhn-sur-vuh-tiv]-
disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
Say it with me.
Existing conditions mean nothing will change under the conservative banner and things will continue to erode into oblivion under this mantra.
Throwing money into Austin will not fix the problems de-regulation was supposed to have fixed and allowing coal fired production plants to be built without regard to down-wind states or federal EPA compliance is just plain confrontational. Change must be made to the Legislature and the governor's office to effect real representation for the people in Texas.
Over and above this issue is today's federal appeals court upholding the rulings of the EPA that heat trapping gasses from industry and automobiles endanger public health, further that the Clean Air Act requires the federal government to impose limits once it has determined emissions are causing harm.
Fourteen states, led by Virginia and Texas, had sued to block the rules. Fifteen states, including New York, California and Massachusetts, went to court to support the agency. Massachusetts and California were among the states that won a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2007, Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, that led to the agency’s endangerment finding. The attorney general of Virginia said he would appeal Tuesday’s ruling.
The politics of carbon dioxide regulation have grown more partisan over the years. When Massachusetts first brought the case that led to the landmark Supreme Court decision, its governor was Mitt Romney. As the presumptive Republican nominee for president, he has since backed away from his earlier position that human-caused global warming is under way.
Samdavis
So defunding Planned Parenthood and Voter ID were emergency items but our infrastructure wasn't a high priority. We're last in health care and in electric grid. The only thing Texas consistently ranks number one is in having a lousy governor and legislature.
namoyer
ERCOT is just oxymoronic! Time to start phased shedding of industrial users off grid, and have them sponsor/buy private electric power. Damned deregulation got it wrong, and TxPUC is complicit is the blackmail the generators are doing to residential users. Another category where TX is slumping to last place.
Abel Garcia via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The article by Kate Galbrith can't be that bad for Texas, because the local powerplant was shut down and dismantled. I have tried to get answers from local TV reporters, local print reporters, US Senators and Texas State Representatives but maybe Kate Galbrith can get some answers.