When talk turns to the Texas electricity supply, the question always comes down to: Will the ERCOT grid be able to keep the lights on? The verdict for this summer from experts is: Yes.
After years of legislation, revamping of rules and finding new approaches to weather readiness, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and the Railroad Commission of Texas are finally getting up to speed on keeping the power flowing.
The two agencies, in conjunction with the Public Utility Commission of Texas, which oversees ERCOT, have closely supervised "weatherization" of electricity producing plants and transmission infrastructure, using machinery and techniques to keep snow from shutting down power generation in winter and preventing extremely high demand for air conditioning from using more power than the production facilities can handle.
"ERCOT has really made a big point about following through with their inspections, and I think we're seeing the dividends of that every year, with more reliable operations," said Michael Jewell, managing partner at Jewell and Associates, which represents a number of developers of gas, solar, wind and transmission assets.
"Even though we have a lot of gas-fired generation that's off-line right now because of annual maintenance needs, when we have these early hot summer days like we're having in May, it really does make it a challenge, but still think that we're gonna be okay, and the fundamental reason why is we've had so much solar development and battery storage that's come on line this year."
Of course, the cause of increased demand is the huge increase in people moving to Texas, in addition to the seemingly insatiable demand for electricity from data centers and crypto currencies, which state has been courting to bring business to the Lone Star State.
And one of the biggest obstacles to getting more power to the Texas electrical transmission system is a shortage of turbines that are needed in electrical generation.
"The demand is growing so much faster than supply, and therefore you're looking at waiting periods of six, seven years to get a turbine," Mr. Jewell said.
But sources are becoming more varied, and that's to the great credit to the state.
"It really is important that we bring on the generation and improve the transmission grid as well," Jewell added.
And there are reasons to be hopeful. There are companies working to get more turbines to the markets, there are new solar wind farms coming online every week in Texas, and new technologies like using earth itself to generate power, not to mention other, more tested methods of generation such as the new technology used in nuclear power, that are also finding their way to help the ERCOT grid in the near future.