Lockdowns and the Texas Power Disaster

By Jeffrey A. Tucker.  Excerpts:

"What seems to have escaped notice, however, is the role that Covid-related lockdowns may have played in reducing inspections and preparations for a possibly brutal winter. With so much of normal life shut down during the spring and summer, and so many people finding every excuse to Zoom meet rather than go to work, power plants were subject to neglect. 

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) – a quasi-government entity – “manages the flow of electric power on the Texas Interconnection that supplies power to more than 25 million Texas customers – representing 90 percent of the state’s electric load.” It is also responsible for inspections, training, and maintenance such as preparing for extreme weather. 

An investigation by NBC found that ERCOT “did not conduct any on-site inspections of the state’s power plants to see if they were ready for this winter season. Due to COVID-19 they conducted virtual tabletop exercises instead – but only with 16% of the state’s power generating facilities.”

Thus in compliance with all the restrictions, and possibly also in order to avoid a germ, ERCOT shelved all its usual preparations in favor of pretend exercises. You can even see this from its board minutes dated October 8, 2020. Many of the regulations operations are suspended or made virtual. Some training was extended from 6 to 12 weeks with the option of being online. Board member Erik Johnson raised a warning flag: “This would significantly impact our ability to conduct continuing training for ERCOT operators.”"

"After posting this, I received a fascinating note from a specialist in Texas who wrote me as follows:

 “The news article from NBC in DFW was fairly misleading. The article assumes that ERCOT is responsible for physical inspections of generation assets, and it is not. ERCOT could have made an improved effort in winter readiness of g&t (generation and transmission) assets by holding g&t owners responsible for proving  natural gas fuel assurance before the storm hit and during the declared energy emergency.” 

Lockdowns have “made life more difficult for grid operators. PPE shortages and travel restrictions have made generation maintenance more difficult to schedule. There have been concerns early  on last spring about deferred generation maintenance. ERCOT among other grid operators should have been concerned and I am sure they probably  were. Here is an article from last spring about concerns over supply chain to the energy sector a possible lockdown impacts.”"