Is the Texas electric grid ready for the upcoming Arctic blast? What is ERCOT doing to prepare?
HOUSTON - Old man Winter is expected to blast his way into Houston late this weekend. That means all eyes are on ERCOT.
Since Houston's big freeze in 2021 and the Texas electric grid's even bigger failure during that time, now when temps tumble too low, Houstonians want to hear from ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.
"Definitely a lot of people have PTSD from those blackouts that we had in February 2021. Then we had a storm that not as many people remember Winter Storm Elliott, December 2022. This storm coming up next Monday and Tuesday is looking about as severe as that 2022 storm," explains Rice University Professor of Environmental Engineering Daniel Cohan.
RELATED: Houston weather: Arctic plunge expected to bring frigid temperatures
I reached out to the manager of Texas' power supply flow, and I was told, "ERCOT is closely monitoring the weather conditions moving across Texas...Grid conditions are expected to be normal and ERCOT expects to have sufficient supply to meet demand."
Has ERCOT made any changes since 2021 that will help the grid to stay online?
"There have been improvements. They've inspected all of the power plants in the state. They've made sure the gas grid functions better, so we don't have the compressors go out when the power goes down," Cohan says.
An Arctic Blast is set to blow into Houston late Sunday or early Monday.
Expect the coldest temperatures to hit Houston in over a year, with a hard freeze forecast for Tuesday morning. We're talking temperatures below 24 degrees with wind chills even colder. Unfortunately, we're in for more of the same next week on Wednesday with temps freezing or lower in the morning.
The electric grid operator has said if the weather gets bad enough there is a possibility for short-term outages.
"Going into this season they said if we got a repeat of Winter Storm Elliott, that December 2022 storm, that it would put us about a one in six chance that we would have at least an hour or two when there might not be enough supply to meet demand," Cohan says.
Thanks to the frigid forecast, ERCOT says they issued an "OCN (Operating Condition Notice) for the predicted extreme cold weather event for Monday, Jan. 15 to Wednesday, Jan. 17."
This is a good time to make plans for the 4 P's, people, pets, plants, and pipes.