State releases new energy report that raises more questions than answers
NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) — Our big weather changes come just as the state has unveiled a report about how to increase the reliability of the electric grid. But it's what the report left out that has some scratching their heads.
After six months and more than $600,000 in taxpayer money, the Public Utility Commission released the report by E3, a private research firm. "This is a remarkable milestone for ERCOT, the market, but also for the state of Texas," said PUC Chairman Peter Lake, calling it a "comprehensive solution, not a Band-Aid."
The proposed system is based on something called a performance credit mechanism. "At the most fundamental level," said Lake, "the PCM requires anyone who sells to a household or business, to guarantee that they are buying that power from a reliable source."
Much of the talk at the PUC meeting centered around acronyms and technical jargon that most of us would not understand. Doug Lewin, the host of the Texas Power Podcast says he, too, had trouble processing the presentation. "They literally just released this concept to the world," said Lewin. "I've never heard of the term performance credit mechanism, so I need to do some more studying on this."
One thing Lewin knows for sure: the report does not address the extreme winter weather of the last few years, including the deadly February freeze of 2021.
"This study from E3 explicitly says that modeling winter storm Uri was outside of their scope. They took an average of the 40 winters from 1989 to 2019. They did not include winter storm Uri."
Lewin says it's hard to give the report a grade because it's simply incomplete. "You're limited in what you can find out about reliability if you exclude extreme weather like Uri. They did not model this last summer - they didn't include the May and July events we had that got us close to the brink of outages this summer."
CBS11 has asked the PUC why the report did not include Uri or other recent extreme weather instances. We will let you know when the agency responds.
Meanwhile the PUC is now asking for public input. Lewin's advice? Don't be intimidated by all the acronyms and technical terms. Your voice still matters. "I think it's very important that people tell what they want. Is that a reliable grid, is that affordability, is it lower costs, is it clean energy? Is it none of the things I just said, and it is other things? It's what matters to you and they need to hear it."
You can find links to the PUC report here.
Have questions like us? The PUC has an Office of Public Engagement. You can email public@puc.texas.gov with questions or for explanations of terms, processes and more.
