Federal regulators have opened an investigation into the cause of the massive power outage in Texas. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) confirms it will work with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation to investigate. FERC is the same agency that investigated the last major winter power outage in Texas in 2011 and then made recommendations to prevent a recurrence in the future.
On Wednesday, a group of congressmen from North Texas sent a letter demanding answers from ERCOT, the agency that manages the state’s power grid. The letter asks what ERCOT did to prepare for this great storm?
Meanwhile, NBC 5 Investigates has uncovered new information showing that less than a week before the storm, ERCOT officials gave assurances that the state’s power plants were ready to weather the elements, raising more questions about how such a massive outage occurred. the state’s electricity system could happen.
During the storm, ERCOT said 40% of the state’s generators – four in ten – have gone offline. Those generators provide 46,000 megawatts of power, enough electricity to power approximately 9.2 million households.
“I think it is safe to say that the weatherization efforts have failed, they have failed to keep the capacity online during this extreme weather,” said Jesse Jenkins, an energy expert at the Center for Energy. and the Environment from Princeton University.
Jenkins said the main questions for researchers will be what power plant operators did to protect equipment from the cold and what ERCOT did to make sure those plants were ready.
“And after the last close calls and rolling blackouts in 2011, attempts are said to have been made to resist the system against the cold. And it is clear that those efforts fell short of the task, ”said Jenkins.
NBC 5 Investigates found reports of ERCOT meetings on ERCOT’s website, which revealed that, just five days before the storm hit, ERCOT CEO Bill Magness assured the group’s board of directors during a meeting, “We are ready for the icy temps coming our way ”.
He said the agency had messaged power plants to make sure they were properly winterized.
In September, ERCOT’s annual winter review, designed to ensure the state is prepared, assured the public that there would be enough power to meet peak demand this winter.
But when the bitter cold arrived, dozens of power plants were shut down, putting millions of Texans at risk.
At a press conference Wednesday, NBC 5 Investigates asked ERCOT CEO Bill Magness how he and his agency could be trusted after the public assured the state was prepared.
Magness responded by saying, “The people people in Texas really need to trust to get us out of this crisis are the operators who work 24/7 shifts to make decisions that keep the system safe.
“The debt could be assessed very soon,” said Magness. “The debt will certainly be assessed.”
NBC5 Investigates also sought to reach out to Sally Talberg, ERCOT’s chairman of the board, who oversees the agency. Talberg did not call back. An ERCOT spokesperson also said that no board members will be available for interviews as their priority now is to restore power.
ERCOT confirmed on Wednesday that it has no mandatory rules requiring power plants to prepare for winter, only voluntary guidelines.
ERCOT says energy producing companies have an incentive to be ready because they can’t make money if they can’t make electricity.
A group representing power generators, Texas Competitive Power Advocates, issued a statement saying that power plants have in fact been winterized and ready for the storm, but the weather the state has seen was unprecedented.