Wind forces Texas power cuts
The wind power boom in Texas may be jeopardizing electric reliability in the Lone Star State. A drop in wind generation and a resulting sudden frequency drop on Tuesday, Feb. 26, triggered cuts to some customers with interruptible power contracts, in order to avoid rolling blackouts, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.
ERCOT, in a press release Wednesday, Feb. 27, said it initiated the second stage of its “emergency grid procedures” Tuesday evening, as wind production dropped at the same time that “evening electricity load was increasing.” ERCOT said it added about 1,100 MW of resources within 10 minutes by cutting off the large industrial interruptible customers.
According to ERCOT, wind production from West Texas fell from more than 1,700 MW to 300 MW as the evening load was climbing. At the time of the event, ERCOT said its demand jumped from 31.2 GW to 35.6 GW, or about half the total generating capacity in the region. ERCOT’s first stage emergency kicks in when reserves fall below 2,300 MW and the second stage is when reserves are below 1,750 MW.
According to ERCOT, the grid operator implemented its stage-two emergency at 6:41 p.m. The council said power was restored to its interruptible customers by 9:40 p.m.
Texas is the leading generator of wind energy in the U.S., having passed California last year.
Geoffrey Gray, an attorney representing several Texas municipal utilities, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “This is a warning to all those who think that renewable energy is the sold answer” to the state’s power needs. “We can’t put all our eggs in one basket when it comes to any form of generation. We need to consider the cost and the reliability issues, in addition to the environmental impact.”
David Crane, NRG Energy CEO, during a conference call on Thursday commenting on the company’s fourth quarter earnings, said, “If a system can go unstable in the Winter because 1,500 MW of expected wind turns into 400 MW wind and then fossil has to scramble to come on line – and with several of our plants that had to scramble to fill in the gap – that’s a big issue and there’s going to be a big debate.”
Crane added that ERCOT is studying how much wind to bring in from West Texas. “I think the question of how you maintain system stability in the face of a massive wind portfolio is a big one. And I think that’s probably the biggest policy issue that’s going to be addressed in any of our markets over the next 12 months.”
NRG is trying to build new nuclear baseload capacity at the existing nuclear South Texas Project, and is encountering obstacles with vendors and at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as reported in POWERnews this week.