Texas Monthly: Electric Grid Failure Was a Warm-up
February 1 — The Railroad Commission of Texas regulates the state’s oil and gas industry—or at least it’s supposed to. In practice, it seldom does. Its three commissioners are elected, and their campaign coffers are filled by oil and gas industry executives. Following the 2021 blackout, the commissioners expressed little interest in learning why the February storm caused statewide outages only in Texas, not in neighboring states and states far to the north. They instead aggressively defended the industry they’re supposed to regulate, arguing publicly that the state’s failure to require winterization of natural gas providers played no role in the disaster. At the February committee hearing, Christi Craddick, then the Railroad Commission chair, tried to pin the blame on electric power producers, claiming that the gas industry was hamstrung by lack of electricity, not the other way around. “The oil field simply cannot run without power,” she testified.
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WFAA: Natural gas giant threatens to cut off fuel for power plants in multimillion-dollar winter storm fee dispute
Jan. 19 — Dallas-based Energy Transfer says the gas will continue to flow to Luminant’s power plants, but did not say for how long. Meanwhile, winter weather approaches.
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Reuters: Texas power plants ready for winter, grid says ahead of cold snap
Jan. 19 — Nearly all of Texas’ electric generation units and transmission facilities have passed the state’s new winterization rules, the state grid reported just before the expected coldest day so far this winter hits the West Texas Permian oil and natural gas producing area on Thursday.
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Fox4 KDFW: Some natural gas suppliers still offline as ERCOT prepares for winter weather
Jan. 19 — The agency that manages the Texas power grid says power plants are ready for this week’s winter weather and freezing temperatures. But there are questions about whether natural gas — which powers the power plants — is ready. And we’re learning there may already be problems ahead of the winter weather.
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KXAN: ERCOT files its final report on weatherization inspections of power generators across Texas
Jan. 18 — The Electric Reliability Commission of Texas has officially filed its final winter readiness inspections report on Tuesday, stating that 321 of the 324 generators it inspected are compliant with the new weatherization requirements.
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KXAN: ERCOT gives update on weatherization, but staffing shortages could impact future reliability deadlines
Jan. 17 — On Monday, ahead of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ deadline to submit its final weatherization & inspection report Tuesday, the council briefed the new board of directors on weatherization progress so far.
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KXAN: ERCOT gives update on weatherization, but staffing shortages could impact future reliability deadlines
Jan. 17 — ERCOT did hire contractors to complete their inspections for weatherization by Dec. 31, on time. But, the board Monday also weighed bringing those inspector jobs in-house next year, which would just add to the current hiring difficulties.