California vs. Texas: Power Grid Catastrophe Showdown

By Dave Levitan | July 19, 2024 | 11:30am

Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Climate Heat Waves

California vs. Texas: Power Grid Catastrophe Showdown

On Thursday, July 11, at around 7 pm, California’s power grid saw a peak demand of almost 44,000 megawatts. That was the hottest day of one of the worst heat waves in recent West Coast memory, and the state’s tens of millions of people were cranking the air conditioning to make it through. So how did the power grid do with that level of demand?

“We were able to meet it with room to spare.” That’s from Dede Subakti, the VP of systems operation at California ISO, which operates the state’s power grid, in a blog post earlier this week. “California’s power grid held up against prolonged record temperatures because of new clean energy resources, more battery storage, and enhanced coordination with state government – and the grid was also able to export energy to other states in need during this heat wave.”

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Meanwhile, in the country’s second-most populous state: “In the wake of Hurricane Beryl’s landfall, CenterPoint Energy has lost the faith and trust of Texans.” That’s from Governor Greg Abbott, returned from a jaunt to Southeast Asia where he missed most of that storm’s direct impacts, in a letter to CenterPoint Energy, the utility that provides power to most of the Houston area. When the storm hit, 2.2 million customers lost power, and more than a million hadn’t it gotten back four days later; many remained without lights and air conditioning for a full week in mid-July. “Texans deserve better from their electrical companies, especially during hurricane season,” Abbott wrote.

The two disasters offer a stark contrast in grid management, energy source reliability, and so on — though to be clear, a heat wave and a hurricane are obviously different beasts, where the first strains the power grid through sheer demand alone (and potentially some heat-related efficiency issues of the power grid structure itself) and the second has to manage trees falling on power lines and other direct damage. Still, California and its increasing reliance on solar power and battery storage can put to bed some of the handwringing over renewable energy penetration. More is good.

Over the past two years, California has added 11,000 megawatts of renewable energy to its grid. It is also now approaching 10,000 megawatts of battery storage, meaning those intermittent sun and wind plants can store up power for nights and calm periods. The state now routinely goes hours-long stretches where the entire grid for the world’s fifth-biggest economy is running on renewable sources. In past heat waves, California did see electric grid troubles; as renewables and batteries proliferate, it appears to be getting stronger.

Texas is another story. ERCOT, the state-level manager of the grid, has come under fire numerous times in recent years when extreme weather caused severe problems. The most major of these was the winter storm in February of 2021, when 4.5 million customers lost power, helping to cause more than 50 deaths and almost $200 billion in damages. Beryl is just the latest example.

The storm has already been blamed for about 20 fatalities, and the power outages are on the hook for around half of them, according to reporting this week. CenterPoint was taking so long to get people back online that workers for the company have been subject to threats and intimidation, prompting statements and pleas for patience from the company and other officials.

This isn’t about an either/or situation, though. Texas itself is home to around a quarter of the entire country’s wind power, with ample solar resources as well. As of this writing at mid-day on a Friday, solar power is generating about 27 percent of the ERCOT grid’s capacity. But Texas and ERCOT are an odd duck when it comes to the country’s power grid: they operate mostly independently of the rest of the country, without ready ability to send and receive power across state lines. Combine that with some aging infrastructure and other issues and you have a grid some have said is “designed to fail.”

Heat waves, hurricanes, other forms of flooding, and more are only going to tax power grids further as climate change worsens. The dueling catastrophes of the past few weeks should offer some lessons for those trying to build the grids to survive those changes.