A Texas Electrical Reliability Council official said Tuesday afternoon that 16 gigawatts of renewable energy generation, mostly wind generation, were offline. Almost twice as much, 30 gigawatts, of thermal sources, including gas, coal and nuclear power, had been lost.
“Texas is a gas state,” said Michael Webber, a professor of energy resources at the University of Texas at Austin.
Although Webber said all of Texas ’energy sources share the blame for the electricity crisis, the natural gas industry produces significantly less energy than normal.
“Gas is failing in the most spectacular way right now,” Webber said.
Dan Woodfin, senior director of ERCOT, echoed that sentiment on Tuesday.
“It appears that a large part of the generation that has gone offline today was mainly due to problems related to the natural gas system,” he said during a Tuesday call to reporters.
Still, some have focused their blame on wind power.
“This is what happens when you force the grid to rely in part on the wind as a source of energy,” said U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston. he tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “When weather conditions get worse like they did this week, intermittent renewables like wind aren’t there when you need them.”
He continued to observe the shutdown of a nuclear reactor in Bay City due to the cold, and finally got to what energy experts say. the biggest culprit, “Low natural gas supply: ERCOT planned 67 GW of natural gas / coal, but we could only get 43 GW online. We didn’t run out of natural gas, but we ran out of capacity to get natural gas. Texas doesn’t use cold insulation, so things froze. “
Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, known for his right-wing posts on Facebook that in the past have spread misinformation and expanded conspiracy theories, has also posted on Facebook an unvarnished view of energy wind: “We should never build another wind turbine in Texas.”
In another post, Miller was even more outspoken, but also misleading: “The insult was added to the injury: These ugly wind turbines out there are the main reasons we’re experiencing power outages. It’s not that ironic. “unsightly and unproductive, they steal the energy from Obama Monuments. At least they show us where idiots live.”
Although wind power skeptics claimed that freezing the week means you can’t rely on wind power, wind turbines, like natural gas plants, can be “overwintered” or modified to run on. very low temperatures. Experts say many of Texas ’power generators have not made those necessary investments to avoid equipment disruptions, as the state does not regularly experience extreme winter storms.
It is estimated that of the total winter capacity of the network, approximately 80%, or 67 gigawatts, could be generated by natural gas, coal and some nuclear energy. It was expected that only 7% of ERCC’s projected winter capacity, or six gigawatts, would come from various wind power sources statewide.
Natural gas production in the state has dropped due to freezing conditions, making it difficult for power plants to get the fuel they need to run power plants. Natural gas power plants typically do not have much fuel storage on site, experts said. Instead, the plants rely on the steady flow of natural gas from pipelines across the state from areas like the Permian Basin, which produces oil and natural gas, in West Texas, to the main demand centers like Houston and Dallas.
Gov. Greg Abbott specified that fossil fuel sources contributed to the network’s problems when he described the situation Monday afternoon.
“The capacity of some energy-generating companies has been frozen. This includes natural gas and coal generators,” he wrote in a tweet.
Heather Zichal, general manager of the American Clean Power Association, said opponents of renewable energy were trying to distract themselves from failures in other parts of the system and slow the “transition to a clean energy future.”
“It’s a shame to see antagonists of clean power for so long, attacking them whether it rains, snows or the sun shines, participating in a politically opportunistic farce that tricks Americans into promoting an agenda that has no nothing to do with the restoration of power in Texas communities, “he said.
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