Officials say that situation in Texas it is terrible, as about 3 million homes and businesses are left without electricity after a fatality record storm. As some of the coldest temperatures in recent decades have affected the Lone Star State, many have blamed an unusual source: wind turbines.
While the state electrical network can withstand your incredibly hot summers, not so prepared for severe winter weather – extremes which is only expected to get worse as the climate crisis is escalating. Frozen wind turbines across the state led some conservative politicians to declare it renewable energy is responsible for catastrophic power failures and continued shutdowns.
“That’s what happens when you force the network to rely in part on the wind as a source of energy,” Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw said he tweeted Tuesday. “When weather conditions get worse as they happened this week, intermittent renewables like wind aren’t there when you need them.”
“We should never build another wind turbine in Texas,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller wrote on Facebook. “The experiment failed a lot.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott echoed the sentiment and took the opportunity to criticize the Green New Deal.
“This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America,” Abbott said dit to Sean Hannity of Fox News Tuesday. “Our wind and solar system went out and collectively accounted for more than 10% of our power grid and that pushed Texas into a state where there was a lack of power across the state.”
But the Texas Electric Reliability Council (ERCOT), which supplies about 90 percent of the state with its energy, said Tuesday that wind power is responsible for only a fraction of the loss. Of the 45,000 megawatts of offline power during the peak, 30,000 megawatts came from natural gas, while 16,000 megawatts came from wind turbines.
“Of the lack of energy that affected Texas, more than 80% was due to problems at coal and gas plants,” PolitiFact reported.
Experts say traditional energy sources, including coal and natural gas, worked below expectations, while wind power exceeded expectations.
“The main story remains the failure of the thermal power plants (natural gas, coal and nuclear power plants) that ERCOT counts on to be there when needed. They have failed,” said Princeton engineering professor Jesse Jenkins . he tweeted Tuesday. “Those of you who have felt frozen wind turbines are to blame, think again. Extreme demand and power plant cuts are the main cause.”
Defenders of renewable energy he blew up state officials to blame the issue only on the turbines.
“It ‘s embarrassing to see long – standing antagonists net energy – Who attacks it, whether it rains, snows or the sun shines? Participating in a politically opportunistic farce that deceives Americans into promoting an agenda that has nothing to do with restoring power in Texas communities, “Heather Zichal, CEO of the Clean Power Association, said Tuesday in a statement: “It is an extreme weather problem, not a clean energy problem. In any case, it shows why we need to invest in building more renewable energy sources with better transmission and storage to replace obsolete systems. ”
Both ERCOT and energy analysts claim that natural gas, which provides just over a third of Texas ’energy and heats about 40 percent of their homes, is responsible for most of the falls.
“By far, the biggest disruptions come from our natural gas plants,” Daniel Cohan, an associate professor of environmental engineering at Rice University, told CBS MoneyWatch journalist Irina Ivanova. “Some were inactive for scheduled maintenance. Others were not designed to operate reliably in extreme cold weather and others have not been able to get enough natural gas supply.”
“It seems that much of the generation that has gone offline today was mainly due to problems related to the natural gas system,” Dan Woodfin, senior director of ERCOT, told reporters.
Abbott also acknowledged this, in contrast to his comments on Fox News. “The capacity of some energy-generating companies has been frozen. This includes natural gas and coal generators,” he said. he tweeted Monday.
In addition, there are antifreeze methods available to keep wind turbines at cold temperatures, but Texas has not invested in them due to the rarity of the cold.
“Iowa and Denmark get a higher percentage of their wind energy than us. There are ways to winterize many of these energy suppliers, but it costs money and requires energy and maintenance,” Cohan said. “In Texas and the South we’ve focused more on keeping the lights on in the summer.”
ERCOT said it was preparing for winter storms, but even the most extreme forecasts were surpassed by this week’s severe weather and energy demand soared. Nearly all energy sources have failed during the storm, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Texas is the only continental U.S. state that has its own independent power grid, is not regulated by the federal government, and is disconnected from neighboring states. On Tuesday, Abbott ordered an investigation into ERCOT.
“The Texas Electric Reliability Council has been anything but reliable for the last 48 hours. There are too many jeans without electricity and heat for their homes,” he said in a statement. “This is unacceptable.”