Texas lawmakers asked two state
agencies to help fix the power grid.
One made some changes to help
us get through this winter while
the other agency has yet to act.
The Cvu defenders dug into what happened
after last year's deadly February.
Winter Storm, investigative reporter Erica
Proffer tells us how far we need to go.
That first night without
power was really terrifying.
In February 2021, a winter
storm killed 246 people.
Feels like we're just
waiting for the next one.
161 people froze to death.
The state's power grid failed them failed.
People like Joe Galvan,
who needed his insulin refrigerated.
So this is our driveway.
At one point, his children warm,
horrifying the thing.
How many more people are going
to die because of inaction?
The Public Utility Commission
regulates power plants,
transmission lines and utility companies.
The railroad Commission.
Regulates natural gas.
The two agencies are supposed to work
together to keep our power grids strong.
Weak oversight lawmakers passed two dozen
laws or communication aimed to fix power
problems and a lack of coordination.
Senate Bill three shows the
majority of the plans it put most
responsibility on PUC's shoulders.
A new set of commissioners
wrote weatherization rules.
Meeting of the Public Utility Commission
set penalties for their side of operations.
It's not one size fits all.
Commissioners will let some
companies skip certain standards.
For example,
wind turbines shouldn't have windbreaks
added. Just take care of people because
that's what's at stake. Human lives,
no stone we left unturned.
There's no scenario we didn't
examine or reform. We didn't vet.
We press the PUC chairman Peter
Lake about the Commission's work,
the market reliability piece is
being implemented in overtime
over the next several years.
Most importantly, the operational
reliability is in place. Now.
Here's what that means to you, your bill.
And the chance of keeping power for now,
these 2011 federal weatherizing
recommendations are a requirement.
Anyone under PUC jurisdiction
had to submit a sworn affidavit.
They would do the work.
Eight companies didn't submit their fines,
total seven and a half $1,000,000.
The Electric Reliability Council of
Texas Orcutt manages the state grid.
They keep supply and demand balanced their
report to Commissioners shows inspectors
checked 324 facilities in December.
What's being done to
protect Texan lives harder.
The reason the grid failed?
Was because the electricity
market runs on supply and
demand companies can charge
more when the supply is low.
PUC changed that.
That's building in a reliability
requirement for retailers to have on
demand electricity for the first time ever.
So the the the retail companies
that send you a bill for electricity
each month will be for the first
time ever responsible for ensuring
that that is on demand. Electricity
instead of paying the market
rate when supply is low.
We've never had that responsibility before.
The Max rate we paid on the open market
during a crisis was $9000 per MW hour.
PUC lowered that cap to $5000,
but they don't know the
long run financial impact.
Instead of paying top dollar
once supply drops too low,
power companies now get paid in
increments as the supply starts to drop.
Lake says it leads to more reliability.
Stay as far away from crisis as possible,
so that's more generations. Sooner
lawmakers let natural gas companies.
Get away from having to
weather eyes this winter.
Even though natural gas companies
had issues before the storm began,
nearly half of the states
power relies on natural gas.
Not all these facilities are the same.
Commissioner Jim Wright is one of
three Commissioners and the Texas
Railroad Commission, one of three who
makes rules to regulate natural gas.
The trio didn't create weatherization rules
and won't until the power grid is mapped,
only critical areas for natural gas
will be required to weatherize.
Not everyone not like
PUC's side of electricity.
We asked right about it.
Why couldn't you just say this is 1 standard?
Everybody has to do it whether
you're critical or not.
Well, again, there.
There's already people up in North
Texas that have weatherization that
they're they do just because they
they every year experience more cold
weather than people in South Texas.
So if I say hey, you got it,
you got to do this. You know,
this is the definition of weatherization.
It's going to be different, I think.
Geographically for Texas when we when
we go to the fine and adopt those,
and I think that's why I'm
mapping is so critical in that
Rice said everyone they inspected
had voluntarily prepped for winter.
Their inspections covered 3/4 of
all gas storage sites plus some
processing plants and gas pipelines.
Even with the best enters in place,
there's going to be outages.
Todd Staples with the Texas oil
and Gas Association lobbies
for the oil and gas industry.
Yeah, I think there's a really big
misconception about the way oil and gas.
Operators prepare for the winter.
He said most gas wells are unmanned
and can take hours to reach,
but that's not the only distance problems.
If you want access to natural gas,
you need to look at storage,
specifically storage.
He said closer to populated areas,
storage wasn't an issue
during the February storm.
Pipelines transport gas
from too far away, he said.
Wright agrees
the pipeline system here in
Texas has to stay pressurized.
Gas loses pressure over distance,
so companies use compressors along the route.
During the storm, pressure
dropped usually either an unmanned
wellhead froze or a compressors.
Electricity got cut when
the electricity was was cut off in a lot
of those areas we didn't have the ability
to keep that pressure in the system.
If the gas system
had not fallen, we would have had
some blackouts, but not as many
and not as bad and not as long.
Michael Weber is a professor
in energy resources at the
University of Texas at Austin.
We are putting all the scrutiny
and pressure on the power system.
To Winterize a power plants
to do inspections or new
regulations or new penalties.
That kind of thing,
and that's reasonable,
but we're not putting the same
pressure on the gas system.
Joe wrote to Lake and the other
PUC commissioners told his story
well. So all I can do is just be loud
and annoying. Do you think they heard you no.
I, I mean, I guess you're here. Yeah,
I didn't think that would happen. We
will continue to listen.
We asked Joe if he had any
question for the PUC chairman,
you could find that question and the
response online with this story at kvue.com
with the defenders I'm Erica Proffer.
Thanks Seroquel and if you missed part
one of the Defenders investigation you
can watch it right now on kview.com.