By Bill King
Th e Houston area has been subjected to two widespread power outages this year. Many in our region went two weeks or longer before power was restored. The outages have sparked widespread public outrage and castigation of the power companies, primarily CenterPoint, by the media and politicians. However, there has been generally more heat than light as far as understanding Houston’s vulnerable grid and how to improve it. We are faced with a multi-faceted, complex problem. Th ere are no easy answers, no silver bullets. But that does not mean that we cannot improve the situation or that we should settle for the current dysfunction. To do so is costly, risks the health of some of our fellow Houstonians and is causing serious brand damage to Houston.
Deconflating Generation and Distribution Issues There are two distinct problems that cause the loss of power in our region. Th e most common is damage to the distribution system, generally caused by some kind of weather event. Occasionally, part of the electric distribution is taken down by flood waters but much more frequently the outages are caused by wind damage to overhead power lines.
Less common are events when the Texas grid (ERCOT) does not have enough power to meet the demand of all its users. Generally, the failure of the system to generate enough power are fairly short-term events and have historically been more common in the summer, especially later in the day. More serious shortages in the winter occur less frequently. Th e near total collapse of the grid during the Uri winter storm in February 2021 was an extreme example of this kind of event. It is possible that an event can cause both generation and distribution disruptions. Also, flaws in the distribution system can exacerbate a generation failure. Uri was an example of both.
I am increasingly convinced that it is unlikely that we are going to have another near collapse of generation like we saw in Uri. Th ere have been a number of reforms to how the grid operates that make a potential collapse much less likely. Also, new generation, especially solar and bat-tery back-up, is being rapidly added to the grid and the State seems to be determined to add more natural gas back-up power.
However, relatively little has been done to improve the problems with our regional distribution system. That is likely because it is a much more difficult problem. Adding additional generation is mostly a money problem. Federal subsidies are incentivizing solar power to quickly be added to the grid and the State can throw enough money at the problem, especially over a few years, to make sure there is sufficient electricity on the grid. But the issues in attempting to make the distribution system more reliable are much more complex and involve the resolution of numerous
conflicting interests.
