Advanced Power Alliance Texas Vice President Judd Messer today issued the following statement regarding Texas’ grid performance amid this week’s cold snap:
“Texas’ power grid performed sufficiently during this week’s cold snap as resources worked in a complementary fashion to provide affordable and reliable power. Dispatchable power plants worked through frigid temperatures with no major outages, wind energy provided nearly 30 percent of the power as ERCOT marked a new winter demand record on Monday night, solar power contributed record power on Tuesday afternoon, and system-wide power prices never neared the extreme amounts that were predicted at peak demand times.
“There was, however, power stranded in South Texas on Monday morning when ERCOT called on Texans to voluntarily conserve energy. The Independent Market Monitor for the ERCOT Region reported that transmission bottlenecks such as these cost Texans over $5 billion in 2022 and 2023. Without an improved transmission system, both reliability and affordability continue to be in jeopardy and, if Texas wants to perpetuate the economic growth and prosperity we’ve enjoyed over the last several decades, we must build a more robust electric grid that reliably brings Texans the energy they need.”