A winter storm exposed underlying issues with Texas’s power system.
As the record-setting winter storm swept across the United States in February, several states, unprepared for the blizzard, faced power outages, leaving millions without heat and power. 70 people in the US died in incidents related to the cold. Texas was one of the hardest hit, leaving 3.4 million homes without power.
“Every source of power Texas has has been compromised,” said Texas Governor Greg Abbott, after signing an executive order demanding that all natural gas providers stop shipping gas out of state and kept the gas in Texas to supplement the failing power system.
The Texas legislature is now debating legislation to improve its grid moving forward. The goal of the bills that have been proposed is primarily centered on making modernizing the grid more financially attractive for private companies. One of the bills in question expands these subsidies or financial incentives (depending on the bill) to larger infrastructure systems like water as well.
This power crisis has exposed grave inequalities in Texas’s existing energy distribution system. While millions of lower-income homes went completely without power, the skyline of downtown Austin, one of the wealthiest cities in Texas, remained festively lit for Valentine’s Day, sparking outrage on social media. While such frivolities are unlikely to be the reason for the failure of the system, the unequal access to power angered many residents. Worse, the real cause has yet to be completely determined.
Though the true cause of the breakdown cannot be easily pinpointed, many have cited increasing excess power storage as a way of limiting the risk of such outages reoccurring. This objective can be accomplished by expanding the use of batteries to store power in the event of emergencies like this storm. Currently, batteries large enough to hold power for entire cities are not economically feasible. However, similar to solar panels, the cost of large-scale energy storage technology is beginning to drop, offering a climate-friendly alternative to natural gas and fossil fuels, which are usually used as backup power sources. According to Omar Al-Jaburi, a partner at Ernst & Young, “Every indication is that it will continue to increase in capacity, decrease in cost, become more commercially viable.”
Texas’s power grid has recovered, but a catastrophe such as this has policymakers looking to the future, during which extreme weather will be more common due to climate change. Increasingly accessible power storage technologies offer a much-needed hope.
