When will Texas, Fort Worth get power back? Questions linger as people wait in cold
When Fort Worth and Texans will regain power remains clouded.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, a nonprofit corporation that manages the state’s flow of electricity, did not offer an exact timeline of when power will be restored during a Wednesday call with reporters.
“The best case at this point is that today or tomorrow we’re able to at least get back down to the point where all of the consumers are experiencing outages that are no longer than, say, 30 minutes to an hour at a time,” said Dan Woodfin, senior director of system operations. “So, we’re actually rotating through people.”
He cautioned: “I don’t think it’s likely that we’re going to have enough available, based on our forecast and the information we’re getting in from the generators, that we’re going to have everybody back on today or before at least the morning peak tomorrow.”
When power comes back is dependent on when generators can come back online, Woodfin said. The amount of power generated could also increase as temperatures warm.
“So it’s really about making sure we’re balancing that supply and demand and trying to do that as quickly as possible,” he said.
ERCOT restored power to roughly 700,000 households in the state overnight Tuesday, but some of that power was lost when the Midwest went into its own power emergency, reducing the electricity coming to the state.
There are three power grids in the Lower 48 states: One for the eastern part of the country, one for the western and one for Texas. While most of Texas is on its own grid, there’s a limited amount of power that can be transferred between the state and other grids, Woodfin said.
The National Weather Service Fort Worth reported Wednesday that “the worst of the weather is behind us.”
Power outages continue in Fort Worth, North Texas
As of Wednesday morning, ERCOT was asking local electricity providers, such as Oncor, to shed 14,000 megawatts of load, which translates to about 2.8 million households.
Oncor warned Wednesday that customers should still be prepared to be without electricity for an extended period of time.
“ERCOT has been unable to predict when more generation will be available and when there will be enough electric supply to meet customer demand,” Oncor said in a news release. “We are doing all we can to ensure Oncor will be prepared to safely deliver electricity to our customers as soon as ERCOT allows.”
At 1:35 p.m., Oncor reported more than 22,600 outages statewide, including 4,456 in Tarrant County, affecting nearly 136,700 customers.
Statewide there were 2.9 million outages as of about 2 p.m, according to poweroutage.us.
“At this point we still have not received any notification this is going to stop through today,” said Darryl Schriver, president and chief executive officer of Tri-County Electric Cooperative, on Facebook Live post Wednesday. “So we are doing rolling blackouts in our system, according to the ERCOT Standards.”
Schriver said there is a “good note:” ERCOT’s operating reserves were at the highest since Saturday.
“So things seem to be picking up from the grid’s perspective, which is kind of a highlight for us,” he said.
Schriver explained that ERCOT’s primary goal is to keep the state’s power grid from completely going out.
“They make decisions on us utilities to keep the entire grid from going black,” he said. “And hypothetically, I don’t know how long it would take if the grid went completely out and everybody had no generation at all, how long it would take for that grid to be back. But I can assure you, it would be a lot longer than four or five days that we’re going through this.”
Federal help coming to Texas
The White House and FEMA are monitoring the weather situation in Texas, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a Wednesday briefing. FEMA is supplying the state with generators and preparing to bring diesel to aid with backup power for “key critical infrastructure including communications, hospitals, and water.”
FEMA, at the state’s request, is also supplying the state with water and blankets, Psaki said, urging people to listen to emergency management officials.
Vice President Kamala Harris said on the “Today” show: “I just want to mention all those folks in Texas and the mid-Atlantic, I know they can’t see us right now because they’re without electricity, but the president and I are thinking of them and really hope that we can do everything that is possible through the signing of the emergency orders to get federal relief to support them.”
Gov. Greg Abbott was part of a Tuesday call with President Joe Biden and other governors of states affected by severe winter weather.
Abbott said a point was raised in that call about “spikes in natural gas prices that occur because of the unusual situation between demand and supply.”
“A request was made by one of the governors for assistance in dealing with those price anomalies, and the president said he would work with the governors on trying to address that issue,” Abbott said.
Abbott has blasted ERCOT’s response to the storm, calling for leadership to resign and asking the Legislature to consider reforms. The Texas Democratic Party has argued Abbott is shifting blame away from himself.
State Rep. Chris Turner, a Fort Worth Democrat who chairs the House Democratic Caucus, wrote on Twitter that the emergency item is called for, but said the role of the Public Utility Commission, whose commissioners are appointed by the governor, must also be examined.
“Let’s leave no stone unturned,” Turner said.
Gov. Greg Abbott gives weather, power update
Abbott, giving an update on the state’s response to the winter weather, said 6,000 megawatts of electricity were brought online Wednesday, equating power for about 1.2 million homes. Additional power is expected from nuclear and coal sources, Abbott said.
“At this time, there continues to be problems with natural gas fired generators as well as wind generation,” Abbott said.
According to Abbott, about 19,800 megawatts of gas-powered generation is offline because of mechanical issues or a lack of gas supply. He said 17,200 megawatts of renewable generated power remain out because of freezing wind turbines or a lack of sun for solar energy.
Some natural gas being produced in Texas is being shipped out of the state, Abbott said. He ordered those producers instead sell the natural gas to Texas power generators through Feb. 21.
“That will also increase the power that’s going to be produced and sent to homes here in Texas,” Abbott said.
Turner questioned why that directive hadn’t come sooner.
“My jaw dropped,” he said on Twitter. “How was this not done on Sunday, when it was obvious we had a critical gas shortage?”
Aside from lacking power, many Texans are dealing with busted pipes as a result of the freezing temperatures. Abbott urged homeowners to start lining up a plumber and working with insurance companies.
Texas law already allows the state’s plumbing board to give provisional licenses to plumbers out of the state, something they’re encouraged to do, Abbott said.
Additionally, Abbott said he’ll be issuing a waiver related to plumber’s licenses to help enlist previously licensed plumbers to assist in the winter weather response.
“The goal obviously is, we’re trying to make sure we will have as many plumbers available as possible to help everybody deal with their plumbing challenges,” Abbott said.
This story was originally published February 17, 2021 at 12:45 PM.
