ERCOT: STATE WAS CLOSE TO MONTHS-LONG ‘CATASTROPHIC FAILURE’

  

Officials with ERCOT are claiming the state’s power grid was on the verge of a catastrophic failure that could have led to outages that may have lasted for months.

Bill Magness, the president of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, tells the Texas Tribune the state was dangerously close to a worst-case scenario: uncontrolled blackouts across the state.

As plants tripped offline due to the extreme cold brought by the winter storm, the amount of power supplied to the grid to be distributed across the state fell rapidly.  At the same time, demand was increasing as consumers and businesses turned up the heat and stayed inside to avoid the weather.

Magness says grid operators had to act quickly to cut the amount of power distributed, because if they had waited, “then what happens in that next minute might be that three more [power generation] units come offline.”

Magness says if operators had not acted in that moment, the state could have suffered blackouts that “could have occurred for months,” and left Texas in an “indeterminately long” crisis.

Tuesday, Governor Greg Abbott called upon Texas legislators to investigate the operator of the state's power grid after millions across the state lost power due to prolonged freezing conditions.

In a statement, Abbott called the situation "unacceptable" and that he believes leadership at ERCOT should resign.