Here’s a technical description of what happened with Texas Electricity last week. If you’re a commercial business with a variable rate plan contact me to see how we can assist you with an all-in-fixed rate.
Texas Energy Summary
The week of February 15-19th was a week that will forever be remembered in Texas. After record-breaking temperatures of below 10 F were extensive across large swaths of the state, freezing gas wells, surging power demand driven by a large percentage of Texas homes using electric heat pumps and freezing water lines, there were ~45 GW of generation spreads out among wind mill, gas plants, coal plants and one of the reactors at a South Texas nuclear station that tripped offline as a result of operational issues. Many gas plants had to come down because their gas supply was reduced due to loss of power at nearby compressor stations. ERCOT initiated an Emergency Energy Action Level 3 (EEA 3) at 1:25 a.m. This initiated rotating outages so as to offset the loss of up to 45 GW of generation or 185 generating units had tripped offline, including one of the two nuclear units at South Texas Project (STP) due to the water used to cool the reactor freezing up enough that pumps couldn’t get enough to the reactor.
ERCOT real-time prices were at 9,000/MWh through most of the overnight hours and through the midday on the 15th before they came back down to about 6,000/MWh through the middle of the day as temperatures rose slightly but were still below freezing. This allowed 30-minute generation reserves to recover to above 2,300 MW but this was only because was 15 GW or more of load was in rotating outages per ERCOT order to utilities. The Public Utilities Commission (PUC) of Texas at first ordered those prices less than $9,000/MWh to be revised up to $9,000/MWh for February 15th but then on February 16th reversed itself and said they would start at 10:30 p.m. CST on February 15th. Brutal temperatures continued over the course of the week and the EEA 3 event lasted until Friday February 19th at 9 a.m. CST. Real-time prices on Friday were quick to decline from $9,000/MWh to the mid $30s/MWh and then were in the single digits later in the day.
While the EEA 3 officially ended on Friday, February 19th, ERCOT had ended the rotating outages on Thursday, February 18th, at 1:05 a.m., which was the trigger for the EEA 3. There have been petitions to the Texas PUC to revise real-time prices from Thursday to Friday to reflect where generation reserves were above the 2,300 MWh on a 30-minute basis. A decision on this question will have to be decided by the PUC in the coming week when it meets.
Temperatures rose across Texas from Friday through the weekend into the 60s F, and prices, after being in the single digits for Friday, went negative by as much as -$30/MWh for most of the afternoon hours only breaking back into single-digit positive territory for the evening ramp hours of hour ending 17-20. Prices averaged $4.51/MWh from Friday at 10 a.m. CST to midnight on Sunday, February 21st.
