ERCOT asked federals to pause federal environmental limits during winter storm

As last week’s historic winter storm swept through Texas, Texas Electrical Reliability Council officials, ERCOT, called on the federal government to temporarily suspend the environmental limits of several energy producers.

The request, signed by ERCC CEO Bill Magness, called for the U.S. Department of Energy to issue an emergency order and declare an “electrical reliability emergency in the state of Texas that requires the intervention of the secretary ”.

The request was sent on Feb. 14 and calls on incumbent Secretary of Energy David Huizenga to allow certain power plants to operate at maximum levels and to allow them to exceed federal emission limits and of wastewater emissions until 19 February.

“This duration will ensure that there is additional supply during a period in which ERCOT can continue to experience an unprecedented cold climate that has forced the generation out of service,” the emergency request said. “According to the ERCOT criteria, the loss of energy to households and local businesses in the areas affected by the restrictions poses a much greater risk to public health and safety than the temporary exceedances of these limits. permissions “.

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The request to the DOE notes that the storm “will result in a record demand for winter electricity that will exceed even ERCOT’s most extreme seasonal load forecast” and “this period will go down in Texas’ weather history as a of the most extreme events in history “impacting the state”.

On February 14, the DOE responded to the ERCC request at 7:41 p.m. CST. ERCC officials were unable to notify KPRC 2 at what time the request was made to DOE, but it did provide us with a notice to “All ERCOT Market Participants,” notifying them of the DOE application at 5:58 pm CST.

You can read the full notice here.

The wording of the request has a very different tone from the public statements made by ERCOT officials three days earlier.

“Right now, we believe we have the tools to maintain a reliable system,” ERCOT spokeswoman Leslie Sopko told KPRC 2 on 11 February.

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Although ERCOT issued news on February 14 asking citizens to save energy, several elected officials have criticized the organization for not sounding the alarm anymore.

“If someone had told us‘ we have big problems, ’we would have made completely different decisions,” Galveston County Judge Mark Henry said. “We would have opened heating centers, we would have given people a place to go.”

Henry said he had no idea ERCOT had that level of concern on February 14th. Even after the storm, Magness said it believed ERCOT had an accurate forecast and had accurately predicted customer demand. Dan Woodfin, senior director of operations for the ERCOT system, said last week that the loss of 185 power plants was not expected at the height of the storm.

“Did you know it was bad, why didn’t you tell us?” Henry asked. “Why did you stick with the shutdown narrative?”

Henry said the county did not receive any calls from ERCOT officials, but eventually received some information from energy suppliers, such as CenterPoint and Entergy.

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“Nobody ever called us, did we have to call them and ask them when filming starts? We have people who have been in the dark for 24 hours with 16-degree weather, ”Henry said.

Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University, Daniel Cohan, Ph.D. understands why ERCOT made the request and why DOE granted it.

“I’m an environmental engineer, I never want to see plants that emit more pollution than they should, but everyone realized we were heading into a dangerous situation,” Cohan said.

Cohan said he disagrees that ERCOT officials adequately predicted customer demand during this storm.

“They had predicted a storm as strong as the 2011 freeze and we had a stronger one,” Cohan said. “Their initial plan, at least the one they issued in November, predicted demand by between 5 and 10 percent.”

ERCOT officials have said they used the 2011 winter storm as a reference for preparation and projections. As reported by KPRC 2, a more than 300-page report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation noted that winter producers ’wintering procedures were“ inadequate or not being followed. properly “. However, the wintering plans submitted by the power plants to the Public Utilities Commission are voluntary at this time. ERCOT officials said 100 out of every 600 plants were checked each year to see if wintering plans were being followed, but they admit they have no authority to force owners to adopt any specific plan.

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The U.S. Power Reliability Corporation, NERC, which has regulatory authority over power plants, will adopt mandatory wintering rules in November 2021.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick was forceful in his assessment of ERCOT’s readiness for this storm.

“I think ERCOT wasn’t ready, they told us they were ready, obviously not,” Patrick said.

On Thursday, Texas Senate and House hearings will meet to investigate the cause of these failures and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, also launched an investigation into Texas power grid problems.