Texas power grid was 4 minutes from catastrophic failure: ERCOT

Keaton Fox Image
Thursday, February 25, 2021
Power grid was 4 minutes from catastrophic failure, ERCOT says
Power grid was 4 minutes from catastrophic failure, ERCOT saysThe state was dangerously close to a long-term outage that would have left millions of Texans in the dark, for not days, but weeks. In the video, ABC13 data analyst Keaton Fox is making it easier for you to understand exactly what happened when Texas entered the "danger zone" during the start of the winter storm.

ERCOT's grid was under significantly more stress than previously thought, according to new documents released during an emergency ERCOT board meeting Wednesday morning.

At its peak, half of the state's power generation capability was knocked offline due to the extreme cold, a striking blow to confidence in Texas' grid, a grid that lives on its own island compared to the rest of the country.

In the most dangerous part of the night on Sunday, Feb. 14 as the cold set in, grid operators were four minutes and 37 seconds away from a large-scale grid 'trip,' which would have led to automatic shutdowns of certain circuits.

ERCOT CEO explains the power grid's "danger zone" at start of Texas' winter storm

In the video, ERCOT leadership gave an exact amount of time that the Texas power grid was from indefinite blackout during the winter storm.

That could have led to a long-term outage of millions of customers as technicians would have to do a 'black start' of generation facilities. That could've taken weeks, leaving Texans in the dark.

Significant power generation was offline for more than 48 hours before power facilities could begin powering back up, data shows. The majority of the power that went offline was natural gas facilities, ERCOT said. The loss in wind power was significantly less, though elevated.

WATCH: ERCOT 'congratulated themselves' for averting longer outage, expert says

UH energy expert weighs in during Action 13: After the Storm town hall on ERCOT's comments about being close to months-long blackout in Texas.
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