Why does Texas have its own electric grid?

Story by Kate Galbraith, The Texas Tribune

TexaS’ SeceSSioniST inclinaTionS do have one modern outlet: the electric grid. There are three grids in the Lower 48 states: the Eastern Interconnection, the Western Interconnection — and Texas.

The Texas grid is called ERCOT, and it is run by an agency of the same name — the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. ERCOT does not actually cover all of Texas. El Paso is on another grid, as is the upper Panhandle and a chunk of East Texas. This presumably has to do with the history of various utilities’ service territories and the remoteness of the non-ERCOT locations (for example the Panhandle is closer to Kansas than to Dallas, notes Kenneth Starcher of the Alternative Energy Institute in Canyon).

The separation of the Texas grid from the rest of the country has its origins in the evolution of electric utilities early last century. In the decades after Thomas Edison turned on the country’s first power plant in Manhattan in 1882, small generating plants sprouted across Texas, bringing electric light to cities. Later, particularly during World War I, utilities began to link themselves together. These ties, and the accompanying transmission network, grew further during World War II, when several Texas utilities joined together to form the Texas Interconnected System, which allowed them to link to the big dams along Texas rivers and also send extra electricity to support the ramped-up factories aiding the war effort.

The Texas Interconnected System — which for a long time was actually operated by two discrete entities, one for northern Texas and one for southern Texas — had another priority: staying out of the reach of federal regulators. In 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Federal Power Act, which charged the Federal Power Commission with overseeing interstate electricity sales. By not crossing state lines, Texas utilities avoided being subjected to federal rules.

“Freedom from federal regulation was a cherished goal — more so because Texas had no regulation until the 1970s,” writes Richard D. Cudahy in a 1995 article, “The Second Battle of the Alamo: The Midnight Connection.” (Self-reliance was also made easier in Texas, especially in the early days, because the state has substantial coal, natural gas and oil resources of its own to fuel power plants.)

ERCOT was formed in 1970, in the wake of a major blackout in the Northeast in November 1965, and it was tasked with managing grid reliability in accordance with national standards. The agency assumed additional responsibilities following electric deregulation in Texas a decade ago. The ERCOT grid remains beyond the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which succeeded the Federal Power Commission and regulates interstate electric transmission.

Historically, the Texas grid’s independence has been violated a few times. Once was during World War II, when special provisions were made to link Texas to other grids, according to Cudahy. Another episode occurred in 1976 after a Texas utility, for reasons relating to its own regulatory needs, deliberately flipped a switch and sent power to Oklahoma for a few hours. This event, known as the “Midnight Connection,” set off a major legal battle that could have brought Texas under the jurisdiction of federal regulators, but it was ultimately resolved in favor of continued Texan independence.

Even today, ERCOT is also not completely isolated from other grids — as was evident during winter 2011 when the state imported some power from Mexico during the rolling blackouts. ERCOT has three ties to Mexico and — as an outcome of the “Midnight Connection” battle — it also has two ties to the eastern U.S. grid, though they do not trigger federal regulation for ERCOT. All can move power commercially as well as be used in emergencies, according to ERCOT spokeswoman Dottie Roark. A possible sixth interconnection project, in Rusk County, is being studied, and another ambitious proposal, called Tres Amigas, would link the three big U.S. grids together in New Mexico, though Texas’ top utility regulator has shown little enthusiasm for participating.

Bottom line: Texas has its own grid to avoid dealing with the feds.

Q. Whom should I call when the lights go out?

A. Oncor*, most likely, which is the company that delivers our electricity. It can be confusing, though, with all the different players in texas’ energy grid. Here’s a cheat sheet:

Generators: texas has 550 generating units across the state that create energy from natural gas, coal, nuclear, wind and other sources.

Electric Reliability Council of Texas: ERCOt is an independent organization that manages the wholesale electricity market in texas. When a rolling blackout happens, it’s because ERCOt mandated it.

*Transmission and delivery companies: In Dallas, there’s only one company — Oncor — that funnels power from the state’s generators through transmission lines and into homes and businesses. During a power outage, Oncor employees are the ones who can restore it. Call 888.313.4747 to let them know (even though your smart meter may be able to notify them more quickly).

Retail electricity providers, or retailers: these are companies such as tXu Energy, Reliant, green Mountain Energy and others that track and bill for electricity use. they contact Oncor to turn on electricity when you move into a new house, for example, or to shut it off when you aren’t paying your bill. Retailers don’t have anything to do with outages caused by storms or power line damage.

50

Retail electricity providers in the competitive areas of texas

250+ the number of plans offered by retail electricity providers (details at powertochoose.org)

Source: ERCOT and TXU Energy

Q. If I sign up for a ‘green’ electricity plan, does that ensure the power reaching my house is produced by wind, solar or another renewable energy?

A. Nope. Coal, natural gas and nuclear power are still being pumped through your transmission lines and into your home, most likely. But you are guaranteeing that the amount of renewable energy you are paying for will be piped into the power grid.

“Regardless of which retail electricity provider a customer chooses, there is no way to separate electricity on the power grid based on how it was generated,” says Juan Elizondo, a spokesman for TXU Energy. “When a consumer purchases a retail electricity plan with renewable electricity, that amount of renewable energy is put onto the power grid. It may or may not be the power that reaches that customer. Those consumers are ensuring that renewable power is put onto the grid, and they are supporting the further development of renewable resources.”

“Think of the electric grid as a giant bathtub that is constantly being filled from many different faucets, and each one represents a different electricity generation source such as coal, natural gas, nuclear, solar, wind, etc.,” says Katie Ryan, spokeswoman for Green Mountain Energy. “Each time you use electricity, you drain a little water from the bathtub. As the demand for electricity from renewable sources increases, more of the clean water goes into the tub — and less of the dirty water from fossil fuel sources is needed.”

Q. Is there any way that renewable energy could grow so popular in Texas that customer demand would overtake supply?

A. Yes, in theory.

“The demand for renewable energy is what makes it grow,” Ryan says. “When demand exceeds supply, renewable energy gets built.”

Wind energy blowing into urban Texas

3,000

Miles of transmission lines built or repaired since 2008 to deliver wind power from the Panhandle and West texas to big cities

$6.7 billion tax dollars funneled into wind energy transmission lines by the Public utility Commission (PuC) of texas’ Competitive Renewable Energy Zones project

$2 million slice of the CREZ project allocated to Oncor, which delivers electricity to Dallas, to build 1,000 miles of transmission lines in its service area

1 texas’ rank in the nation as a wind energy-producing state

10,929

Megawatts of energy texas’ wind turbines are capable of generating at any given time (One megawatt equals 1 million watts; Colorado and Iowa, in secondand third-place, can generate 4,570 and 4,536 megawatts, respectively)

9,481

Megawatts produced by texas wind on Feb. 9, 2013, the state’s wind generation record

27.8

Percentage of the state’s energy load the wind carried on that record-setting day

200

Homes powered by one megawatt during peak demand

Source: Oncor, ERCOT and the American Wind Energy Association

Are renewable energy plans the easiest way to be green?

16,000

Pounds of CO2 emissions avoided in a year by someone who participates in a 100 percent renewable energy plan and uses an average of 1,000 kilowatt hours per month

6,000

Pounds of newspapers that would have to be recycled to equal avoiding 16,000 pounds of CO2 emissions

Source: Green Mountain Energy