History and Analysis of the Texas Power Grid

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NAERC) power transmission area consists of five separate power grids. The Eastern Interconnection extends East of the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Coast, excluding Texas and Quebec. The Western Interconnection extends from the Rockies to the Pacific Coast and from the Southern United States border to the top of British Columbia and Alberta. There are also three minor interconnections, which are Alaska, Quebec, and of course, the Texas Interconnection. 

Historical Overview

The Texas Interconnection covers most of the state and is managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). According to an article from TEXplainer, the primary reasoning behind Texas controlling its own power grid is to avoid being subject to federal regulation. The Texas Interconnected System was originally built as two separate systems, one for the Northern part and one for the Southern part. The two parts banded together after 1935 when Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Federal Power Act into law. This was legislation that allowed for interstate electricity transfer to be regulated. Texas utilities joined forces to avid regulation by not crossing state lines. In 1965, one of the worst power outages in the nation’s history occurred, which did not affect Texas, but did lead to the creation of ERCOT as it is today in 1970 after more federal regulations were imposed from the blackout. 

Winter Storm of 2021

The rolling blackouts across the state in February show that Texas’ “electrical island” can have drastic impacts. According to an article from the NY Times, the decision in 1999 to further deregulate the system and create a market-based system of private entity generation, transmission, and retailers. While this can contribute to increased capitalistic competition and cheaper monthly rates for users across the state, when Winter Storm Uri hit, this coupled with its history of separating itself from the other US Interconnections to create the partly natural, partly man-made disaster that we saw a couple weeks ago that caused massive damage that could total to be the state’s costliest in its history.

In the Wake

Since Texas began to warm up and return consistent power to the millions who lost it, matters are still playing out. For example, some people who had their lights stay on were struck with extremely high bills, but Governor Abbott later addressed that the Public Utility Commission issued a moratorium that will stop electricity providers from issuing invoices for the time being. Now, seven members of the ERCOT board of directors have resigned in the wake of this event, as federal and state legislative leaders try to find answers to the grid failure and the mistakes in how it was handled. Also, on the morning of March 1st, news broke of the Brazos Electric Power Cooperation Inc., Texas’ largest and most tenured electricity cooperation, has declared for bankruptcy after large bills came their way. 

As the state tries to recover, the long-term effects are still unclear. It will be important to see if Texas remains as independent moving forward and if the free-market approach of utilities is the right model. Climate events like Uri will inevitably continue, but resilience planning and strengthening infrastructure is vital to the future of Texas.