The ERCOT Grid Suddenly Seems Stable Compared to Other Regional Grids

Snow-covered cars line a north Texas street during Winter Storm Uri

In what has become a rare circumstance in recent years, managers of the Texas power grid at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) just successfully endured a summer during which they were not forced to issue conservation warnings or resort to other extraordinary measures to preserve grid integrity on a single day. This uneventful summer was achieved despite the setting of new record power demand on several days in August.

ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas cited a variety of factors that helped lead to the grid’s increased reliability. Those include an overall milder weather summer than the record heat experienced in the state during the summer of 2023, additions of more generation capacity mainly consisting of solar, and more modest additions of battery backup storage for renewables.

“Over the last year, we’ve seen significant additions of energy storage resources, solar resources and wind resources, with a few additions also on the thermal side, the gas side,” Vegas said, as reported by Utility Dive. “All of that has helped to contribute to ... less scarcity conditions during the peak periods of summer, like we experienced last year.”

ERCOT and officials at the Public Utility Council of Texas (PUCT) remain concerned about a longstanding paucity of dispatchable thermal reserve capacity, especially during harsh winter weather conditions. To help alleviate that concern, the PUCT moved last week to award low-interest loan guarantees totaling $5.4 billion to 17 applicants to build a total of almost 10 GW of new natural gas capacity to be sited around the state. This is part of the Texas Energy Fund in-ERCOT loan program signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott at the end of the 2023 legislative session.