Growth in electricity demand will outstrip capacity additions in the Texas electricity system in the coming decade, reducing reserves and raising the risk of reliability problems as soon as 2013, a new analysis suggests.
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation projected power reserves in the region served by the grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas won’t be as high as the group recommends, “raising significant concerns of resource adequacy.”
“More resources will be needed in Texas to support projected peak demand, potentially significant generator retirements, and an increased need for reserve capacity to support variable generation,” the report said.
Because the problem could occur by 2013 and the state’s main grid is relatively isolated from others, the report notes ERCOT “may face challenges building or acquiring new resources over the next two years.” Still, the report said that a majority of areas nationwide appear prepared to meet projected peak demand over the next 10 years.
ERCOT declined to comment, saying it hadn’t yet reviewed the report.
Texas is fresh off a summer in which a record drought nearly forced the state to initiate rolling blackouts on two separate occasions. Recently the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group, said the incidents in Texas underscore how the electric generation sector stresses freshwater resources for cooling water.
The state ordered rolling blackouts in February 2011 during a cold spell that forced some generating units offline.
The incidents have brought a chill to some Texas officials’ spines, especially with the Environmental Protection Agency considering power-plant regulations that officials with ERCOT and other state agencies say could force power plant retirements, threaten reliability and result in blackouts. Two rules would reduce air emissions, while the other two would regulate cooling-water intake structures and disposal of coal ash.
The NERC report raises particular concerns about how four such rules, when combined, could affect Texas’ electricity system. Those four rules could reduce electric generation capacity, “worsening reliability issues in the Region,” the report said.
Republicans have sought to delay, weaken or block those power-sector rules over electric-reliability and economic concerns. So far their efforts haven’t made it beyond the GOP-controlled House. Democrats and the EPA have rebuffed the concerns as exaggerations and scare tactics.
Aides to Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have already come out blasting the NERC analysis as making “implausible assumptions” that cause the results to exaggerate the rules’ impacts.
In a letter to NERC last week, EPA Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe raised similar concerns on a draft copy of the report, contending that NERC assumed, among other things, that power plants would choose the most expensive compliance options available.
We deserve no blackouts and everyone should have their own power, I mean one should have an electric generator at home in case of emergency period.
the electricity not only depends upon thermal fuels, but wind power and solar power is still providing much and much source of energy. Also one can own them for lifetime.