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Operators of power plants and transmission lines that are part of the Texas electric grid have until Dec. 1 to make their “best efforts” to fix known problems that led to failures during last February’s deadly freeze and to implement decade-old winterization recommendations that state regulators largely disregarded until this year.
That’s the crux of new rules approved Thursday by the Texas Public Utility Commission — rules that the agency says will boost the grid’s resiliency heading into winter, which starts in about eight weeks.
Under the rules, electric companies will be required to document that they have taken certain winterization measures — but they won’t be penalized if they suffer weather-related failures or outages.
Still, members of the utility commission called the new rules a step toward greater oversight, because Texas previously had no winterization requirements. They also said “more robust and year-round preparation standards” are being developed — in conjunction with a comprehensive state weather study — although those standards won’t be in place anytime soon.
The rules approved Thursday are “operational standards to be ready for this winter,” said Peter Lake, chairman of the utility commission. They’ll ensure that “the physical resiliency of our grid is vastly improved this winter over last winter.”
But not everyone sees it that way.
“Really, at the end of the day, it just feels like they are telling operators — ‘Go out and do your best,’” said Adrian Shelley with the watchdog group Public Citizen. “You would hope that (plant operators and distribution companies) were already doing their best.”
Meanwhile, there’s a large potential hole in the effort to get the state’s power grid ready for this winter that is beyond the Public Utility Commission’s purview.
The Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the natural gas industry, has yet to put in place any new winterization mandates for wellheads and pipelines, and it also is considering enacting a rule that would allow their operators to opt out of having them designated as “critical infrastructure” within the electricity supply chain that must winterize — simply by paying a $150 application fee.
The railroad commission is taking public comment on its proposed critical-infrastructure rule until Nov. 1, with final adoption expected by Dec. 1. But a committee of state lawmakers recently excoriated the agency for it, so the rule’s fate appears to be up in the air.
“You sound like you missed the urgency message” to safeguard the grid, state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, told Wei Wang, executive director of the railroad commission, during a hearing three weeks ago. “That is unsatisfactory. You have unified this body” in anger at the agency.
“This is the Achilles heel right now” in grid preparations, state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, said during the same hearing. Natural gas suppliers “were as much of the problem as everything else” during the February calamity.
A lack of consistent natural gas supply for gas-fueled power plants was among the top causes of the widespread and lengthy power outages during February’s massive failure of the state’s electric grid, according to a preliminary report last month from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — coming in second behind a lack of weatherization at power plants of all types.
But the natural gas industry has been scrambling since that disaster to avoid blame and the potential for increased regulation, paying for a report issued in April that largely absolved it of responsibility.
At least 210 Texans died for reasons related to the severe winter freeze in February — when the power grid faltered just when needed most — and property damage has been estimated at more than $200 billion.
Under the rules for this winter approved Thursday by the Public Utility Commission, operators of power plants and transmission lines have the ability to assert a “good cause exception” to certain of the new winterization requirements — meaning they essentially can apply to opt out.
In most cases, however, the exceptions granted to them would be temporary, and they would have to provide documentation of specific causes for their noncompliance and a schedule to come into compliance. Regulators also would have to sign off on the exceptions.
Overall, the winterization measures that power plants and transmission companies now must take — or at least make their best efforts to put in place — are largely those that were recommended in two reports from nearly 10 years ago, after a winter storm in 2011 caused widespread power outages on the Texas grid.
Those decade-old recommendations have never before been made into requirements, either by Texas lawmakers or state regulators. They include such things as heat tracing to protect pipes from the cold, insulation of critical parts and installation of wind breaks or enclosures for cold-sensitive equipment and sensors, as well as efforts to ensure “onsite fuel security.”
The “highest-ranking representative, official, or officer” with authority over the particular plant or transmission facility also will have to provide a notarized statement that the actions have been taken. In addition, the operator of the state’s power grid — the Electric Reliability Council of Texas — has the authority to inspect all facilities with 48 hours’ notice.
Some power plant operators say they haven’t been waiting for the new rules to get their facilities ready for the upcoming winter.
“We’re voluntarily hardening our power generation fleet to withstand a once-in-a-100-year event like (the February winter storms), and we’re going beyond the 2011 NERC recommendations,” said Vistra Corp. spokeswoman Meranda Cohn, referring to the report by the North American Electric Reliability Corp.
Still, Public Citizen’s Shelley called the new rules weak and said he’s concerned the grid overall remains extremely vulnerable.
The new rules are “better than nothing,” he said. “But if we have another storm at the same intensity as (the one in February), then I think people should be very concerned.”