The Texas State Senate Business and Commerce (B&C) Committee recently sent a letter to the Texas Public Utility Commission saying that the PUC did not include any evaluation of the dispatchable ancillary or reliability service product as the Legislature had previously requested in a report it had released.
Of the recommendations the PUC made, the B&C Committee believes it fails to meet the required directives and could not be employed in a timely or cost-effective manner. The letter is requesting the PUC define reliability goals for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) region, evaluating the impact of creating a new market-based service to meet this standard, and put forth clear performance requirements prior to moving forward with any significant market redesign.
State Rep. Jared Patterson (R-Frisco) wrote an opinion article regarding grid reliability for The Cannon, which was published on Dec. 5.
"Data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) shows the state of our grid is still precarious at best," Patterson wrote in The Cannon. "The ERCOT grid broke records multiple times this summer as demand for electricity soared higher than ever. But demand isn’t the problem; our ability to meet it is. And if Texas continues trusting wind to do that, power outages will become more and more common.
"Energy producers have moved away from reliable fossil fuels and toward unreliable renewables, because it’s nearly impossible to compete with taxpayer-funded subsidies tipping the scales so heavily," Patterson continued. "Had those subsidies not distorted the market, Texas could have kept much-needed coal and gas plants from closing and kept our grid strong for a tiny fraction of the price. The Texas Legislature must resist the siren song of renewable energy subsidies and shift its focus to affordable, reliable sources like natural gas, clean coal and nuclear — the only generators we can count on to perform when we actually need them."
The B&C Committee believes that the PUC's recommendations fail to meet the required directives and couldn't be installed in a timely or cost-efficient manner. The letter signees are requesting that the PUC do the following: Define reliability goals for the ERCOT region; evaluate the impact of creating a new market-based service to meet the new standard; and submit clear performance requirements before moving forward with any significant market redesigns.
"Texas needs to build new dispatchable energy resources for when the grid is stressed in extreme weather/higher energy use,” B&C Committee member State Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown) said in a tweet from Dec. 1. "Unfortunately, PUC's current market design proposal falls short of this fundamental goal. Let’s work together this session to get it right for Texans."
In July 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) released a formal letter directing the PUC to immediately take action to improve the reliability of the state's power grid. Actions meant to be taken include the following: Streamline incentives within the ERCOT market to foster the development and maintenance of adequate and reliable power sources, including natural gas, coal and power; allocate reliability costs to generation resources that can't guarantee their own ability, including wind or solar power; instruct ERCOT to establish a maintenance schedule for natural gas, coal, nuclear and other nonrenewable electricity generators to ensure that an adequate supply of power on the grid is reliably available for all Texans; and order ERCOT to accelerate the development of transmission projects that increase connectivity between existing or new dispatchable generation plants in areas of need.
In December, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released a report stating: "The Texas region (ERCOT) is likely to experience the largest shift in generation mix in 2023. We expect that the share of electric power generation from wind in ERCOT will grow from 25% in 2022 to 29% in 2023, and that the solar share will grow from 5% to 8%. ERCOT’s share of generation from coal in the forecast falls from 17% this year to 16% in 2023. But we expect growing generation from renewables, especially during peak hours, will cause the natural gas share to fall from 42% in 2022 to 36% in 2023."
Patterson was first elected to represent Texas' 106th District in 2018, and he currently serves on the House Committees for Business & Industry, Homeland Security & Public Safety and Calendars. Patterson also works as the director of energy services at retail electric brokerage firm Rapid Power Management
