An employee repairs a power line in Austin, Texas, USA, on Wednesday, February 18, 2021.
Thomas Ryan Allison | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Texas Electric Reliability Council, known as ERCOT and controlling the majority of state power, said it plans to emerge from the emergency on Friday as power has returned to millions of customers left in the dark.
However, the effects of the deadly storm can still be felt throughout Texas.
ERCOT said energy conservation is “still critical”. According to the latest data from PowerOutage.us, nearly 200,000 customers in the state are still without power. Utility officials say limited rolling blackouts are still possible if electricity demand increases.
At one point on Tuesday, more than four million customers were without power.
While the heat may return, parts of the state’s water supply could now be at risk after water pressure has dropped, leading to potential contamination.
Alison Silverstein, an independent energy consultant and former strategic adviser to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said 20 million or more Texans could be forced to boil water.
ERCOT officials said at a virtual press conference Thursday that it was just “seconds and minutes” away from a much worse disaster, given the speed at which the system’s generation went down. KXAN in Austin was the first to report the comments. If they hadn’t cut the power when they did, the entire network would have gone down, Silverstein said.
Winter conditions affected electricity production from natural gas, coal, renewables and other sources, just as consumers turned their thermostats higher in cold temperatures. The net could not match the dynamics of supply and demand.
Natural gas production throughout Texas fell by about 30%, making it difficult for energy companies to find the gas they needed to run their power plants. By some estimates, as many as four million barrels of crude oil production were taken offline per day.
Energy prices initially rose as a result of the production shutdowns, but took a breather Thursday, with West Texas Intermediate crude oil and natural gas futures both falling.
The WTI’s decline continued on Friday and the contract traded below $ 60 a barrel. Earlier this week, WTI surpassed $ 60 for the first time since January 2020.
Henry Hub natural gas futures rose 1.95% to trade on Friday at $ 3,137 per million British thermal units. Natural gas is up more than 7% for a week.
Texas government Greg Abbott has called for an investigation into ERCOT.
“The Texas Electric Reliability Council has been anything but reliable for the past 48 hours,” he said in a statement Tuesday. Far too many Texans lack power and heat for their homes as our state faces freezing temperatures and harsh winter weather. This is unacceptable.
Looking ahead, experts say mandating equipment to be winterized could be one of the steps taken to prevent future disasters.
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