Five steps to a reliable Texas electricity grid

Many Texans remain traumatized by the February Freeze and blackouts, which got me thinking about what I would do to improve the electricity and natural gas networks if I were king for a day.

My immodest proposal is constrained only by scientific, technological and economic realities, not conventional or political wisdom.

My first royal decree would abolish the Texas Railroad Commission and its three statewide-elected positions. Most Texans don’t know, nor do they care, who regulates the fossil fuel industry. The commissioners’ campaigns have become nothing more than a way for the industry to install lackeys.

I would move the commission’s staff into the Texas Public Utilities Commission and create the Texas Energy Commission. The February Freeze demonstrated how the fossil fuel industry is intricately connected to electricity generation, and it makes sense to put all the regulators under one roof.

The governor should not select the new commission, though. Political patronage contributed to the hundreds of deaths caused by the blackouts. How to select the commissioners would take its own column, but suffice it to say, industry voices and consumer advocates should balance each other.

I would make the TEC’s job less important by interconnecting the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’s grid to the rest of the country. Yes, that means accepting federal oversight, but frankly, state officials proved themselves incompetent this year. Grids subject to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rules did just fine.

Not to mention, interconnections come with benefits far beyond federal reliability standards.

Today, when Texas generators have excess capacity, they must reduce output because the juice has nowhere to go. Interconnections would allow Texas generators to sell power nationwide, wherever it is needed.

West Texas wind is strongest at night when we’re asleep, but parts of our night are the West Coast’s evening and the East Coast’s morning, when demand is highest on those grids.

Consumers would save money because ERCOT will no longer have to contract only with local generators. If the Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia has extra juice when Texans are turning on televisions in the evening, importing that electricity is a cheaper option than building another natural gas plant here.

As the cliché goes, the wind does not always blow everywhere, nor the sun always shine eveywhere, but the wind is always blowing, and the sun shining somewhere.

More transmission lines carrying more renewable energy to more places will reduce our reliance on fossil fuels for reliability.

Coal and gas companies don’t want ERCOT interconnected with the rest of the country because an independent grid guarantees them profits from captive customers who have no alternatives.

Eric Gay /Associated Press file photo

Under the author’s plan, the governor would not appoint members to a new state energy commission.

Stringing new wires, though, is politically difficult. So, I would change state eminent domain laws to make it easier for transmission companies to gain right-of-way, something natural gas pipelines enjoy. Property owners will complain about big government ruining their views, but our safety depends on more transmission lines.

Which brings us to the juicy part, or how to generate more electricity. Every plan to mitigate climate change relies on electrifying transportation and nearly everything else. We’re going to need much more clean, reliable and affordable power than ever.

We will need a little bit of almost every kind of generation. We can easily rely on wind, solar and energy storage to meet 80 percent of our demand, experts agree. But we will need to keep the hydroelectric and nuclear facilities we have now.

For peak periods and emergencies, we will always need quick-start natural gas plants for reliability. Wherever possible, we should incorporate carbon capture equipment, and where we cannot, we’ll need to offset the CO2 emissions. But we will need to shut down every coal plant.

State and federal agencies will both need to support experiments with new technologies, such as offshore wind on the coast, advanced nuclear reactors in North Texas and hydrogen-fueled turbines in Houston and West Texas.

The biggest opportunity, though, is encouraging energy efficiency and rewarding those willing to cut demand when needed. We could reduce peak demand 20 percent with better insulation and smart thermostats alone.

To encourage the right mix, ERCOT will have to scrap the current energy-only wholesale market and pay companies to be ready in an emergency. Every other competitive electric grid in the world has a so-called capacity market, and in return, these markets ban price-gouging when emergencies strike.

None of these ideas are original, all these things exist in other grids. Over the past 20 years, Texas leaders have created energy networks that reward corporations at the expense of average Texans.

If only I could be king for a day.

Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and politics. twitter.com/cltomlinsonchris.tomlinson@chron.com