Governor Abbott held a press conference on February 1 at the Alternate State Operations Center ahead of severe winter weather expected to impact the state of Texas this week. The Governor was joined by representatives from the Texas Division of Emergency Management, ERCOT, Public Utility Commission of Texas, Railroad Commission of Texas, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Military Department, Texas A&M Forest Service, Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas Department of Transportation, Texas Department of State Health Services, and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.
This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics taken up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the discussions but is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.
Governor Greg Abbott
- Have a substantial winter storm coming in for the next few days and will be here for the remainder of the week
- Are utilizing every applicable state agency to robustly respond to the extreme cold winter storm
- PUC has held meetings with utilities on winter preparations; has been a multi month process to inspect power generators, 99% have passed
- PUC will provide 24/7 staff to the emergency outages center and will provide updates
- PUC is bringing more generation online; sooner than last year
- Are reasons why there may be power outages that have nothing to do with the power grid; currently are 5,000 Texans without power right now
- Could be ice on powerlines or trees that could cause outages; local power companies are working to make sure power will be restored quickly
- ERCOT issued an operating condition notice last Friday
- Electricity forecast showed lesser electricity than previous forecasts
- ERCOT has not requested enforcement from TCEQ as of yet
- Highest demand from the power grid on Friday morning
- Around 15,000 MW in excess should be available at that time
- RRC conducted operational calls with gas participants; all are prepared for inclement weather
- RRC has inspected underground storage facilities
- TCEQ has deployed emergency management response teams; on standby to assist local governments for water/wastewater and other emergency situations
- TCEQ has employed power emergency procedures
- EPA Region 6 to begin coordination with any emergency response requests
- In 12 or 18 hours expect cold and participation, will bring rain, snow, or sleet
- Roadways could become treacherous in the next couple days
- Urge Texans to be cautious
- TxDOT has deployed 4,000 emergency personnel
- Road pre-treatment began Sunday and will continue today
- TxDOT will have daily calls with districts/divisions
- Will shift resources as weather conditions shift
- org will depict road conditions in your area
- TDEM will host an energy emergency call for market participants and will continue on a daily basis
- TDEM working to ensure water and food are stationed in areas that will be most effected
- Texas military division has already engaged 130 personnel and 50 vehicles
- Are supporting the state operations center
- Texas A&M Forest Service able to assist agencies with winter weather support
- Assigned to support TxDOT in certain areas
- Texas Parks and Wildlife are on deck to aid in any need
- Texas Department of Public Safety will be working to ensure roadway safety
- DSHS working to ensure facility issues will be dealt with accordingly
- Are coordinating for emergency evacuated with state nursing facility centers
Nim Kidd, Texas Division of Emergency Management
- Emergency Management Council is ready; notes the City of Corpus Christi will provide transportation to warming centers
- texas.gov will have the locations of warming centers
- Need to take action to protect life; wind chills could be deadly
- Driving conditions could be treacherous
Steven McCraw, Department of Public Safety
- If you do not have to be on the road, do not be out there; stay off of roadways
Marc D. Williams, TxDOT
- Crews have been preparing for winter weather including road pre-treatments
- District personnel have been deployed; majority in North Texas
- Expect conditions will make for hazardous driving conditions; cannot guarantee roads will be safe
- Ask motorists give treatment operators room to do their jobs
- Road conditions will be housed on drivetexas.org
Peter Lake, PUC
- Reforms put in place over the last year
- More reserves will be brought on the grid
- Grid and transmission centers meet and exceed federal requirements in terms of weatherization
- Have worked to identify critical infrastructure to ensure natural gas stays online
- Last week have worked with generators to ensure maintenance was completed before this event
- Generators have procured extra coal and fuel
Brad Jones, ERCOT
- Have been working over the last year to ensure generators, transmission system is ready
- Have passed inspections; feel comfortable on their level of readiness
- Working on communication to ensure public gets clear information
- Will have 71,000 MW of load demand and will have 86,000 MW available
Jim Wright, RRC
- Had multiple conference calls with industry participants; they do not expect any significant problems during the freeze
- Real time production can vary hour-to-hour due to a variety of reasons even during regular conditions
- Have inspected winterization at natural gas facilities; 98% facilities have been winterized and 2% were in the process of winterization
Q&A
Q: Reliability Council has met behind closed doors, could those be livestreamed to the public?
- Abbott – Goal is to be transparent, want to earn trust from the public
- Kidd – Chair that council; hope the actions taken by the council will be evident during the storm
- Kidd – Council was formed to ensure market participants and agencies were communicating
Q: Are 5,000 without power currently? Will be fixed soon?
- Abbott – Are without power due to reasons unrelated to the power grid; majority of those are in Houston and were related to weather events not related to the winter storm
- Abbott – CenterPoint handles majority of the energy in Houston and works efficiently to handle those issues
Q: What is your metric for grid reliability? If there are any load shed events, it will not be a success?
- Abbott – Cannot ensure that will not happen, but aim to keep the power on
Q: Concerns about natural gas; what are the weatherization standards? Expectations for how much gas will be offline due to recent events?
- Wright – Industry has used multiple ways to ensure they will not freeze
- Wright – Some reports at the beginning of the year were not out of the normal; January 20 produced more natural gas than we have in two years
Q: Lessons learned since last year to better prepared roads?
- TxDOT – Despite efforts TxDOT makes, cannot guarantee 100% safety
- TxDOT – Are doing additional re-treatment and are working with cities and counties to address these conditions
Q: Focusing on rock salt solutions for roads?
- TxDOT – Brine solution is the pre-treatment; will reapply if there is a rain event
Q: Regret calling an additional session to require additional weatherization requirements for natural gas?
- Abbott – A lot of natural gas was shut down my ERCOT last winter storm
- Abbott – Have designated over 1,000 facilities as critical infrastructure to ensure their power will not get turned off
- Abbott – Texas produces far more natural gas than what is needed to respond to this storm
- Abbott – Have multiple days’ worth of natural gas in storage
Q: Aware of any MW that have been pulled offline?
- ERCOT – Making sure around 1200-2600 MW in assets impacted in Dallas are moving over to alternate pipelines/fuel
Q: 98% have been weatherized?
- Wright – Have taken steps to winterize; feel comfortable they are prepared
- Abbott – Injection of methanol is important to prevent freezing; many have implemented this
Q: Added capacity for certain plants, will use that?
- Lake – Price changes per day and geographic location
- Lake – Entire fleet is dispatched accordingly