In mid-February, Texas residents suffered through several days of rolling blackouts and freezing cold temperatures. A winter storm led to power outages for more than 4 million people and at least 70 recorded deaths.
Marginalized communities were the first impacted by power outages and the most affected. These communities lacked the resources to seek refuge and rebound from the storm and are financially at risk when their residential energy bills arrive. All told, it was one of the worst disasters for the Lone Star state.
Texas gets lots of its energy from renewable sources and the state hosts the most wind energy in the nation. In the wake of the freeze, some conservative figures blamed the outages on failed renewable energy. But that's not what happened.
Texas is in a unique, and problematic, situation of its own making. It's the only state that runs its own, standalone energy grid, operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). The grid is not subject to federal oversight and is completely dependent on its own resources.
How is that problematic? For one, it creates a lack of financial incentives for energy suppliers to ensure adequate supply. Also, when Texas is hit with a major weather event such as the deep freeze, the state can be stranded without reserve power or the ability to connect with other states’ grids.
Even though these shortcomings are known in Texas, some instead pointed the finger at frozen turbines for the lack of energy. But that scenario is impossible; natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy provide the bulk of electricity fuel in Texas. Wind only makes up 25 percent of state energy production. So, while some turbines did fail to function due to the cold weather, nuclear shutdown, frozen natural gas wellheads, and dampened gas supply were primarily to blame.
ERCOT noted that thermal sources (i.e. coal, gas, and nuclear) lost nearly twice as much power due to the cold as renewables, with wind only contributing to 13 percent of power outages. Even if wind turbines were operating at full capacity during the freeze, they would not have generated enough power to make up for the failure of other power sources.
Texas could avoid problems like these by requiring its grid to have weatherization, but it doesn't despite similar problems of unusual cold in the past. In both 2011 and 2014, the state's largest electricity producer experienced similar outages under frigid temperatures. In 2014, utilities' backup generators failed more than a dozen times in the span of 12 hours, nearly collapsing the state's electric grid.
Following these breakdowns, the Texas legislature ordered a study to help understand "critical failure points" of power-generating companies and how to prevent future equipment freezing. But since then, lawmakers and the Texas Public Utilities Commission (PUC) have dismissed, ignored, or rendered toothless efforts to address the grid's weaknesses.
Neither ERCOT nor the PUC issue annual planning reports or consumer protections as do other regions' regulators, and they do not enforce any sort of extra power reserve for times of increased demand or crisis.
Blaming the renewable sector for Texans' power loss is not just factually unsupportable, but reveals a mindset that is helping to put the state on ice to begin with: climate change. Many in the South - not just Texas - experienced record cold in February, temperatures that used to only happen once a century, but nowadays happen consistently. It's part of a global trend toward weather anomalies.
While it may seem strange to blame climate change and a hot planet for freezing temperatures, a warming world yields extremes in both directions. Rapid warming in the Arctic causes disruptions in the polar vortex, which is usually held in place by the jet stream. But warm air at the Arctic circle weakens the jet stream, causing it to get "wavier" and more elongated, dragging polar air south.
And what is one of the major contributors to climate change? Emissions from burning fossil-fuels, such as coal and natural gas. Amping up fossil energy and shutting down renewables out of a misplaced fear of outages will only drive further extreme weather events. A wiser approach would be to focus on improving weatherization and reforming grid planning for resiliency because we can expect more extreme weather events in the future.
How can North Carolina defend against similar grid failure and move toward a more climate-friendly energy grid? Wind may hold the answer - and provide other benefits to the state and its people.
A report recently issued by the North Carolina Department of Commerce projects that the offshore wind industry could provide many new jobs and billions of dollars of investments in North Carolina, from the industry itself as well as its supply chain. Forecasts for the eastern seaboard show offshore capacity exceeding 40 gigawatts (GW) by 2035, and the report foresees that North Carolina manufacturers will play a key role in supplying equipment for the wind industry all along the Eastern seaboard.
Last year, the state joined in a partnership with Maryland and Virginia, the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic Regional Transformative Partnership for Offshore Wind Energy Resources (SMART-POWER), which will advance offshore wind projects in the region.
The Bureau of Offshore Energy Management (BOEM) has already approved plans for a wind energy area near Kitty Hawk, N.C., which would produce enough energy to power around 700,000 homes. This project could be just the beginning; North Carolina has the best offshore wind potential of any other state on the eastern seaboard, and BOEM has identified other areas off of our coast that are well-suited for offshore wind (Wilmington-West and Wilmington-East).
Duke Energy has expressed interest, with one scenario in its integrated resource plan (IRP) calling for deployment of 5,500 MW of onshore and offshore wind. Under that scenario, we could attain 70 percent carbon reductions by 2030.
North Carolina has a number of tools it could employ to green our grid while keeping it reliable, from slashing carbon emissions as part of a regional team to committing to clean energy goals. We have the opportunity and the means to be a leader in resilient and renewable energy - for the good of our economy, our people, and our environment.