Blackouts Cascade Beyond Texas in Deepening Power Crisis

[Rasulis]

Blackouts Cascade Beyond Texas in Deepening Power Crisis

Blackouts are spreading across the central U.S. and into Mexico as an energy crisis that has already brought Texas’s power grid to its knees deepens.

As more than 2 million homes and businesses in Texas are already without power, the operator of an electric grid spanning 14 states from North Dakota to Oklahoma ordered utilities to start rotating outages to protect the system from failing amid an unprecedented cold blast.

“It’s a step we’re consciously taking to prevent circumstances from getting worse, which could result in uncontrolled outages of even greater magnitude,” the grid operator, called the Southwest Power Pool, said in a statement Monday. “In our history as a grid operator, this is an unprecedented event.”

In Mexico, at least 400,000 homes, businesses and other users lost power as the cold in Texas triggered a natural gas shortage and forced power plants offline. About 60% of those impacted had their power restored by midday, according to the grid operator, Cenace.

The brutal cold striking Texas -- ironically the capital of the U.S. energy industry and home of some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies -- is emblematic of a world facing more unpredictable weather due to the rising impact of climate change. The outages underscore how as the globe moves away from fossil fuels into an all-electrified system that relies more and more on renewable energy, the grid becomes more vulnerable too.

Such weather conditions are very rare in much of Texas, and they have unleashed chaos on the ground. In Houston, the state’s largest city, roads are iced over and there are long lines to refill household propane canisters. Firewood is selling out.

Besides the human impact, the cold is wreaking havoc on the energy industry itself. Oil production in the Permian has dropped by 1 million barrels a day, helping U.S. crude prices to trade above $60 a barrel for the first time in more than year. The region’s industrial plants built to cope torrid summers rather than arctic weather, and the biggest U.S. oil refinery went offline on Monday, reducing the supply of gasoline and other fuels.

Large swaths of Dallas, Houston and other cities have been plunged into darkness as extreme cold and surging demand for heat pushes generators to the brink. The outages began as controlled, rolling power cuts but have cascaded into prolonged blackouts in some areas.

“We anticipate we will need to continue these controlled outages for the rest of today and perhaps all day tomorrow,” Dan Woodfin, a senior director for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which managed the state’s power grid, said during a briefing Monday.

In the last six months, extreme temperatures have led to rolling blackouts in the two most populous U.S. states. In August, California grid operators shut off power when record heat push demand beyond capacity, and now Texas’ record cold has led to the same result.

The extreme cold appears to have caught Texas’s highly decentralized electricity market by surprise. Power plants with a combined capacity of more than 34 gigawatts were forced offline overnight, including nuclear reactors, coal and gas generators and wind farms, Woodfin said. It’s not clear why, he added.

Wind power in particular appears to have been a major victim of the weather conditions, with turbine blades rendered inoperable due to ice, a phenomenon that reduces efficiency can ultimately stop them from spinning. Wind generation has more than halved to 4.2 gigawatts.

Power is going to continue to be cut across the state through Monday and potentially into Tuesday morning until enough generators come back online, Woodfin said.

“Every grid operator and every electric company is fighting to restore power right now,” said Bill Magness, head of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which runs the state’s grid.

These are the first rolling blackouts caused by cold weather since 2011 in Texas. Spikes in electricity demand usually happen in summer in Texas when air conditioning use rises. A loss of frequency on the grid has caused 30 gigawatts of generation to halt. Many stations will have been undergoing scheduled maintenance, leaving the grid more exposed during unusually large spikes in demand.

Parts of Texas were colder than Alaska, according to the National Weather Service. The temperature at 5 a.m. in Houston was 18 degrees Fahrenheit, matching the reading in Anchorage. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area it was 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

Frigid temperatures and a parade of storms in the U.S. follow other instances of extreme winter weather this year that have snarled ports and upended energy markets in Asia and Europe. Texas, which isn’t accustomed to winter’s full fury, is getting a big taste. President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency, mobilizing federal assistance to aid local response efforts.

The average spot price for power across the Texas grid hit the state’s $9,000 per megawatt-hour price cap shortly after 9:30 a.m. local time. LNG exports from the U.S. also plummeted after the freeze shut ports and wells, and oil production also took a hit, with Permian oil production plunging by as much as one million barrels a day. West Texas Intermediate futures rose by as much as 2.5%, above $60 a barrel for the first time in more than a year.

The cut to crude supplies is threatening to unleash a rush for everything from propane to heating oil, fuels that are used in mobile heating devices.

Odessa in West Texas, one of the largest cities in the Permian Basin, still has power, but San Antonio has lost power with rolling blackouts lasting 10-15 minutes, according to sources on the ground.

Houston may pick up as much as 2 inches (5 centimeters) of snow overnight, along with ice and sleet, the National Weather Service said. It will get hit by another storm bringing ice and freezing rain Wednesday.

“It is going to be a cold week,” said David Roth, a senior branch forecaster at the U.S. Weather Prediction Center. “The southern plains are in a cold pattern and it is going to take a while for them to break out of it.”

Among the other markets moving on the cold:
Gas in Chicago hit $220 per million British thermal units, traders said. Physical gas was going for as much as $300 at a Texas hub. Oklahoma gas prices have swung anywhere between $50 to the high of $600. Spot gas prices across the eastern U.S. remained subdued amid milder temperatures, assessed at anywhere from $4 per to $12 on Friday.

Ouch. My daughter in Houston said that it will get even colder tomorow.

[Milchshake]

Blackouts Cascade Beyond Texas in Deepening Power Crisis



Ouch. My daughter in Houston said that it will get even colder tomorow.

I guess that succession that the TX Governor spent the last three months blabbing about has been canceled due to snow.

Thoughts and prayers. Losing power during a winter storm sucks.

[Zan15]

The amount of bitching about "clean" energy during this wave of outages is insane.
They seem to skim right over the part about oil production being impacted as well.

Its like they never had outages before from hurricanes, floods and tornado's.



Meanwhile this happens ever other week in New England states...during the winter

Oh and its funny how a hotel can't charge 300 dollars more for a room but you can charge 300 dollars more for oil during an emergency.

[PC2]

That sucks. In the northern hemisphere peak average coldness happens in January or early February in some places but it'll get warmer as we head into March so it should go away pretty quickly. I guess they'll want to increase capacity by this time next year.

[Belize]

Southeast TX resident here:

The main culprit is absolutely shit infrastructure. I'm talking about transformers dying on a nice sunny day and killing power to large swathes of the city for a couple days.

Neither Centerpoint nor Entergy have any drive to ameliorate things, even though the past 3 years keep having worse and worse issues.

[Sorensen]

Texas complaining when it's going to be -25 where I'm at tonight.

[Rasulis]

Texas complaining when it's going to be -25 where I'm at tonight.

My wife complains when the temperature is 50F outside.

All kidding aside, I would rather deal with hot summer rolling blackouts than dead winter rolling blackouts.

[Forgettable]

So I checked and it's around -5 degrees in Houston right now.
I don't understand how this is crippling, the temperature isn't even that cold.
My city has been in a deep freeze of -25 - 30 for the last 2 weeks.

[Beazy]

My power had been out since 3am. Have to sit in three living room with a fire to keep warm. Never seen cold like this in Dallas.

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Because there's no such thing as negative temperatures in TX . . . . Until last night.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

My wife complains when the temperature is 50F outside.

All kidding aside, I would rather deal with hot summer rolling blackouts than dead winter rolling blackouts.

Not me.

When it's Cold, there's always the option to bundle up more. When it's hot...there's only so much you can do.

[GreenJesus]

Southeast TX resident here:

The main culprit is absolutely shit infrastructure. I'm talking about transformers dying on a nice sunny day and killing power to large swathes of the city for a couple days.

Neither Centerpoint nor Entergy have any drive to ameliorate things, even though the past 3 years keep having worse and worse issues.

Turns out energy companies wanting to squeeze every drop of profit each quarter by trying to postpone investments in updating/fixing their infrastructure will leave them with a huge bill down the road once they need to replace everything all at once. Maintaining equipment hurts your quarterly income, but eventually they will have to pay the price for not doing it over the years. They probably know that the government will be forced to bail them out.

[Zan15]

So I checked and it's around -5 degrees in Houston right now.
I don't understand how this is crippling, the temperature isn't even that cold.
My city has been in a deep freeze of -25 - 30 for the last 2 weeks.

Because no one down there prepares for cold of that nature for long periods of time.

They might have generators set up for the summer because of hurricanes and tornado's but they didn't plan on trying to heat shit in the winter.

Supply of heaters down there i am sure is not very large.

Like you, we are prepared for wild swings in temperature so we have everything backed up from heat to water to cooling.

[Rasulis]

Because no one down there prepares for cold of that nature for long periods of time.

They might have generators set up for the summer because of hurricanes and tornado's but they didn't plan on trying to heat shit in the winter.

Supply of heaters down there i am sure is not very large.

Like you, we are prepared for wild swings in temperature so we have everything backed up from heat to water to cooling.

According to the article, many of TX power stations and plants are in maintenance mode and not operating at peak capacity during this time of the year.

[Sorensen]

Because no one down there prepares for cold of that nature for long periods of time.

They might have generators set up for the summer because of hurricanes and tornado's but they didn't plan on trying to heat shit in the winter.

Supply of heaters down there i am sure is not very large.

Like you, we are prepared for wild swings in temperature so we have everything backed up from heat to water to cooling.

Should have thought of that before making things so big.

[Zan15]

Turns out energy companies wanting to squeeze every drop of profit each quarter by trying to postpone investments in updating/fixing their infrastructure will leave them with a huge bill down the road once they need to replace everything all at once. Maintaining equipment hurts your quarterly income, but eventually they will have to pay the price for not doing it over the years. They probably know that the government will be forced to bail them out.

ever try to increase rates realistically as an energy supplier/generator?

good luck getting 25% of what you ask for to do upgrades and maintenance without a full out riot.

Fact is most customers are billed way less than they should be for our grid and supply so we get the system that we have today. After decades of that principle being applied we get this kind of result.

All because the current generation and their parents want to pass the cost down the line. Just like they have done with every other thing in this country from Social Security to national debt to environmental problems. coughboomerscough

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According to the article, many of TX power stations and plants are in maintenance mode and not operating at peak capacity during this time of the year.

yup the risk is much lower to do that now vs in the spring/summer but its still a risk.

[Jonnusthegreat]

Turns out energy companies wanting to squeeze every drop of profit each quarter by trying to postpone investments in updating/fixing their infrastructure will leave them with a huge bill down the road once they need to replace everything all at once. Maintaining equipment hurts your quarterly income, but eventually they will have to pay the price for not doing it over the years. They probably know that the government will be forced to bail them out.

Not sure how it is in TX, but most places these 'utility' companies can charge anything they want and are audited by the government regularly to ensure the monopoly isn't exploiting consumers. Competition destroys efficiency so many utility companies are private businesses with guaranteed 0 competitors. So they should feel zero need to make quarterly gains because they are guaranteed to make gains necessary to serve the populace.

[Zan15]

Not me.

When it's Cold, there's always the option to bundle up more. When it's hot...there's only so much you can do.

get naked....sit in tub.....watch ipad...unplugged of course.

when i got my first apt with my SO that is exactly what we had to do during a 4 day power loss. actually even slept in the car one night with the AC running. 11 dollars worth of gas later i got my first good night sleep in 3 days.




Lived through this in upstate NY, 1990's ice storm. Was downright insane to see massive transmission towers buckle. We had 11 people living with us by the end of the first 5 days without power. They all ran out of gas for their generators.




https://www.google.com/search?q=Ice+...h=775&biw=1536

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Not sure how it is in TX, but most places these 'utility' companies can charge anything they want and are audited by the government regularly to ensure the monopoly isn't exploiting consumers. Competition destroys efficiency so many utility companies are private businesses with guaranteed 0 competitors. So they should feel zero need to make quarterly gains because they are guaranteed to make gains necessary to serve the populace.

TX is rate regulated. Different rules for each part of the system but they can't charge anything they want.

Most of the time its the supply/generation side that is in competition not the transmission, infrastructure and delivery side. Those are all regulated to hell and back

[cubby]

Southeast TX resident here:

The main culprit is absolutely shit infrastructure. I'm talking about transformers dying on a nice sunny day and killing power to large swathes of the city for a couple days.

Neither Centerpoint nor Entergy have any drive to ameliorate things, even though the past 3 years keep having worse and worse issues.

Infrastructure, and especially our electrical grid, are national-security levels of shitty. Ted Coppel's "Lights Out" is a eye-opening read into how vulnerable our entire electrical grid is right now.

[Rasulis]

Infrastructure, and especially our electrical grid, are national-security levels of shitty. Ted Coppel's "Lights Out" is a eye-opening read into how vulnerable our entire electrical grid is right now.

I thought TX has its own power grid which is separate from the East and West Rocky Mountains power grids? I wonder if that also meant they can't buy emergency power from other states?

[PACOX]

It's a really sucky situation. Of course people are going to say "I'm in colder weather right right now" but that's in a place used to it.

Stuff starts to shut down here if it's hits 40F, people aren't going anywhere 30F unless they have to because we don't have cold weather gear or infrastructure like people further up north. Cars aren't starting, power gets funky, Pre-Covid flus, colds, pneumonia spread like wildfire due to weather going to 90, 30, and back.

Also people 'used to' the cold also forget how humid the South is. I actually don't know how humid it gets in Texas but around here but dry air vs humid air cold weather are two different beasts - reported air temperatures are deceptive.

Real real shitty situation in Texas right now. I can definitely deal with the heat better than the cold.