EVERY MAN A GRID NODE:

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) competitive, energy-only market "seemed like it was saving money until last week, when losses equaled the cost of three years of generation," agreed Rice University Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Daniel Cohan. "The free-market ideology ignores risks. Most people want to keep the lights on more than to make a market theory work." [...]

Texas' historical opposition to FERC regulation has made it an "electrical island," ERCOT CEO Bill Magness said in a 2016 interview.

Renewables were more than a quarter of Texas electricity generation in November 2020, based on DOE data. With ERCOT's increasingly dynamic supply and load, Texans may prefer being able to access out-of-state markets, even under federal regulation, to being without electricity, Silverstein said. 

Texas should "immediately start negotiations to interconnect with the rest of the country," Wellinghoff said. "That's the fastest route to thousands of MWs of support and it would allow Texas to profit by selling its now-curtailed thousands of MWs of West Texas wind into other systems," he added.

"It is not a political issue," he insisted. "There are no red or blue electrons. This is about saving money and keeping consumers safe."

Texas leaders should also immediately order a study to identify the true costs and benefits of interconnection, both Silverstein and Wellinghoff added.

ERCOT, the PUCT, and the New York grid operator have testified to FERC that wide geographic access to diverse resources strengthens reliability and lowers costs, said Grid Strategies Vice President Michael Goggin. Those benefits were demonstrated in the MISO and PJM markets during the January 2019 Polar Vortex, he said.

In February, the "network inside Texas allowed solar, in-land wind, and coastal wind to work together," Goggin added. "More inter-regional transmission connecting ERCOT, MISO, PJM and the West could have relieved the shortages."

"In times of trouble, it may be that your neighbor or your neighbor's neighbor can help," said Energy Systems Integration Group (ESIG) Associate Director Debra Lew during a Feb. 23 webinar introducing ESIG's white paper on the urgent need for national transmission planning.

ESIG is a global energy industry consultant to power providers, developers, planners, and regulators.

The transition to a renewables-dominated, zero-emissions economy is accelerating, but transmission development is not keeping up, ESIG's Transmission Planning for 100% Clean Electricity reported.

An example is Pattern Energy's 2 GW Southern Cross transmission project to interconnect Texas with Louisiana, Mississippi and the MISO system. First proposed in 2011, construction has not begun, though both FERC and PUCT approvals of the high voltage direct current line "do not affect ERCOT's independent status," Pattern Vice President of Business Development Glen Hodges said.

"The ability to import up to 2 GW of power into Texas during such a crisis would be a tremendous benefit to stability of the ERCOT grid" and "a huge help to Texas consumers," Hodges added.

With unpredictable events and high power prices becoming more common, planners should recognize that inter-regional transmission allows responding "to anything, anywhere," Goggin said.

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