AUSTIN — All indications are that Texas’ power grid is meeting demand so far.
Gov. Greg Abbott and state officials managing Texas’s emergency response to the winter storm said energy needs are being met Thursday during a briefing with multiple agency heads and officials responsible for managing Texas’ power grid.
“There is plenty of power available at this time, as well as plenty of power expected over the remainder of today and early tomorrow,” Abbott said in a briefing from the Alternate State Operations Center in Austin.
And, he declared, preparation has enhanced the state’s capabilities to withstand the storm and keep the power on for Texans. Other state officials echoed Abbott’s statements that the grid is performing reliably in the freeze.
Despite the grid’s performance, Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 17 counties in North and Central Texas, including Dallas and Denton counties. Other counties covered by the declaration are Bosque, Delta, Ellis, Fannin, Grayson, Hopkins, Hunt, Johnson, Kaufman, Lamar, Navarro, Rains, Red River, Rockwall and Williamson.
Tensions have remained high as school districts, airlines and DART have canceled many operations across North Texas. But the grid remained stable with isolated outages reported across North Texas.
At noon, about 69,000 customers were without power across Texas, according to the website PowerOutage.us. Those outages are not an indication of any weakness in the grid, Public Utility Chairman Peter Lake said, but rather an effect of icing on trees and power lines causing localized outages.
“We are dealing with one of the most significant icing events that we’ve had in the state of Texas in at least several decades,” Abbott said.
In the past 24 hours, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas has increased its projected peak demand on the power grid to nearly 75 gigawatts. That is nearing record levels of 77 gigawatts seen last year during February’s deadly winter storm.
While those projections are up, ERCOT’s interim CEO Brad Jones said wind power in West Texas is over performing, accounting for roughly 27% of Texas’ midday energy production, ERCOT’s power grid dashboard indicated. ERCOT had expected heavy icing to greatly affect wind turbines. That has not happened, Jones said, leading the grid operator to now project much higher output from that energy source.
Additionally, Abbott said 2,900 natural gas production facilities are now designated as critical infrastructure. Last year, fewer than 100 of those facilities had that designation.
There have been fluctuations in natural gas production, but “the gas is flowing,” Texas Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick said.
Bloomberg is reporting that natural gas output in Texas has dropped about 5% and the Texas Oil & Gas Association, an Austin-based industry group, reported that early indications show that natural gas production will continue to decrease throughout the day.
“Factors include icy roads, some power loss, high winds, mechanical issues and freezing equipment that is being addressed by personnel in the field,” the group stated in a news release.
Despite possible shortfalls in natural gas — Texas largest resource for electricity production — officials project that when demand peaks at 8 a.m. Friday, Texas will have 10 gigawatts of energy reserves, enough to power two million homes.
About 6.7 gigawatts of power production are offline in Texas, according to ERCOT. However, that remains below ERCOT’s projection that 7.5 gigawatts of power production would be offline during the winter storm.
“The grid remains strong, reliable and it is performing well in this winter weather event,” Lake said.
Leading up to Thursday, officials from agencies have repeatedly warned Texans to stay off roads and prepare for the possibility of blackouts even as forecasters predict this winter storm will be far less impactful than the winter freeze from a year ago.
Texas Department of Transportation chief Marc D. Williams said the state agency has seen roughly 2,500 road segments, generally west of Interstate 35, that are covered in ice and snow.
Williams said managed lanes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area have been closed to manage resources so TxDOT can focus on main lanes. He also specifically mentioned bad road conditions on Interstate 20 from Abilene to Fort Worth and Interstate 10 between Ozona and Fort Stockton in West Texas.
Abbott also issued a proclamation for 17 counties waiving some Texas Department of Public Safety rules related to the hours a trucker can remain behind the wheel. Abbott said he did not want those rules to get in the way of supplies arriving to Texas. The list of counties was not immediately available.
On the road to Boerne northwest of San Antonio, Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke indicated in a live Instagram video that he was suspending political block walks and phone banking for his campaign.
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